Syntax360
Member
My thread title is demonstrably false - buying into a good idea is precisely what I have done. But most people do not trade in ideas. Most people will probably recognize a good idea, and some among them will go so far as to casually endorse a good idea - but real products and services are the only thing that will stir average people to invest financially or emotionally in a thing.
Dash will never see widespread adoption until we can convert the average consumer from the state of total ignorance/apathy, through casual endorsement, and deliver them finally into emotional/financial investment.
Dash does not currently provide a product/service that most people want or need.
Or at the very least, we have failed to make a compelling case to the contrary.
Brother camosoul named this thing precisely just a few weeks ago in his "Retail adoption for DASH" thread. I highly recommend you read it, or at least his first few paragraphs which specifically identify the nature of the real problem plaguing Dash.
Dash is a clever and important idea, so this might be an uncomfortable truth for most of us - we are here precisely because we are the sort that trades in ideas. In this respect, we are the exception and not the rule. If the rest of the world valued the things we value, it is unlikely we would be here having this conversation at all. Projects like Dash are the natural consequence of the seemingly endless train of abuses made possible when a world becomes overrun with people who cannot or will not invest in the big picture - the stuff ideas are made of.
Ideas do not matter to most people, most of the time. The world only cares about what it can get from you.
Most of our marketing has largely celebrated all the ways we are better than Bitcoin. But the average consumer is not holding back their interest/investment in Bitcoin because it "isn't good enough". They are holding back because Bitcoin fails to offer them any real advantage over established payment mechanisms. Bitcoin (and cryptocurrency in general) fails to offer any compelling reason why one should go out of their way to use it.
Many people will mistakenly cite that last part as the rub – the part about people having to go out of their way to use cryptocurrency. They say that if only we could: 1) get merchants on board, and 2) streamline the fiat->cryptocurrency process, then the average consumer would choose to use cryptocurrency instead of Paypal/Visa. Those two things certainly would not hurt our efforts to go mainstream, but neither really addresses the real existential dilemma we are dealing with.
Existing payment mechanisms may indeed be profoundly flawed - camosoul does an admirable job detailing one such example in the thread I referenced - but the average consumer will maintain willful blindness to what goes on behind the curtain so long as the existing channels never compel them to take a peek. Merchants will cling to existing payment mechanisms until they no longer can afford to do otherwise. Vendors will adopt cryptocurrency the day they notice sales diverting to some competing merchant because the latter accepts cryptocurrency and they do not. Vendor adoption may expedite consumer demand, but consumer demand will necessitate vendor adoption. There is a reason the vast majority of us can occasionally use Apple Pay or Google Wallet, but most of us never have.
Until we are able to directly name some problem the average consumer recognizes and explain how Dash will make their life better, we (and all cryptos) will continue to grasp at dollars and cents in the cash-starved realm of Ideamen.
A campaign to crown Dash the King of the Cryptocurrency is simply not good enough. Total domination of our market share would amount to little more than one incremental step towards superseding any existing major payment mechanism.
The only path to realizing our shared dream is to change the framework of our own perspective. We must target ordinary problems that consumers would immediately recognize and concisely outline how Dash solves them. Marketing needs to focus less on the technical merits of brilliant and revolutionary ideas; we should spotlight those ways Dash can directly improve the consumer’s life in some meaningful way.
So it falls on us - the Ideamen and pioneers - to first answer these questions:
What problem in your own life has Dash offered a solution to?
What problems in your own life could Dash solve if this thing ever takes off?
Would anyone else outside your bubble really care?
Dash will never see widespread adoption until we can convert the average consumer from the state of total ignorance/apathy, through casual endorsement, and deliver them finally into emotional/financial investment.
Dash does not currently provide a product/service that most people want or need.
Or at the very least, we have failed to make a compelling case to the contrary.
Brother camosoul named this thing precisely just a few weeks ago in his "Retail adoption for DASH" thread. I highly recommend you read it, or at least his first few paragraphs which specifically identify the nature of the real problem plaguing Dash.
Dash is a clever and important idea, so this might be an uncomfortable truth for most of us - we are here precisely because we are the sort that trades in ideas. In this respect, we are the exception and not the rule. If the rest of the world valued the things we value, it is unlikely we would be here having this conversation at all. Projects like Dash are the natural consequence of the seemingly endless train of abuses made possible when a world becomes overrun with people who cannot or will not invest in the big picture - the stuff ideas are made of.
Ideas do not matter to most people, most of the time. The world only cares about what it can get from you.
Most of our marketing has largely celebrated all the ways we are better than Bitcoin. But the average consumer is not holding back their interest/investment in Bitcoin because it "isn't good enough". They are holding back because Bitcoin fails to offer them any real advantage over established payment mechanisms. Bitcoin (and cryptocurrency in general) fails to offer any compelling reason why one should go out of their way to use it.
Many people will mistakenly cite that last part as the rub – the part about people having to go out of their way to use cryptocurrency. They say that if only we could: 1) get merchants on board, and 2) streamline the fiat->cryptocurrency process, then the average consumer would choose to use cryptocurrency instead of Paypal/Visa. Those two things certainly would not hurt our efforts to go mainstream, but neither really addresses the real existential dilemma we are dealing with.
Existing payment mechanisms may indeed be profoundly flawed - camosoul does an admirable job detailing one such example in the thread I referenced - but the average consumer will maintain willful blindness to what goes on behind the curtain so long as the existing channels never compel them to take a peek. Merchants will cling to existing payment mechanisms until they no longer can afford to do otherwise. Vendors will adopt cryptocurrency the day they notice sales diverting to some competing merchant because the latter accepts cryptocurrency and they do not. Vendor adoption may expedite consumer demand, but consumer demand will necessitate vendor adoption. There is a reason the vast majority of us can occasionally use Apple Pay or Google Wallet, but most of us never have.
Until we are able to directly name some problem the average consumer recognizes and explain how Dash will make their life better, we (and all cryptos) will continue to grasp at dollars and cents in the cash-starved realm of Ideamen.
A campaign to crown Dash the King of the Cryptocurrency is simply not good enough. Total domination of our market share would amount to little more than one incremental step towards superseding any existing major payment mechanism.
The only path to realizing our shared dream is to change the framework of our own perspective. We must target ordinary problems that consumers would immediately recognize and concisely outline how Dash solves them. Marketing needs to focus less on the technical merits of brilliant and revolutionary ideas; we should spotlight those ways Dash can directly improve the consumer’s life in some meaningful way.
So it falls on us - the Ideamen and pioneers - to first answer these questions:
What problem in your own life has Dash offered a solution to?
What problems in your own life could Dash solve if this thing ever takes off?
Would anyone else outside your bubble really care?