Privacy? Whatever. No one cares if the government tracks how many coffees you buy.
Peer to Peer? Everyone is doing just fine with the money and credit they use through banks.
Security? Is having to remember a 12 word passphrase that you can never recover if you lose it so much better than having to trust a bank?
The lives of everyone who are not using cryptocurrency are just fine right now. Let that sink in a bit, don't just gloss over it. People are shopping at stores, getting paid at their job, going out to restaurants, and it all works the way everyone expects it to work. No one is standing at a cash register in a grocery store yelling, "There has got to be a better way!"
No one looks at Bitcoin Cash, and pays for something with a QR code, and thinks, "Wow, that is totally unlike the dozens and dozens of other electronic payment available to me already!"
While each and every store that takes on Bitcoin Cash is a tiny step in the right direction, the idea that you could go to a place and also pay with Bitcoin Cash for a thing that you can just as easily pay for with dozens of other methods just isn't that dazzling.
People in the cryptocurrency world in general, and the Bitcoin Cash community in particular, talk about all sorts of issues that people should want out of a new world currency. And issues of privacy and security and no third parties and whatever do matter... to about 1% of people, most of whom are already involved in crypto.
The fact is, there is one reason, and one reason above all else, that the wider world of people are coming to cryptocurrency. They hope to make money.
Right now, that mostly involves investing in Bitcoin like a stock, hoping it will go up so they can cash out later. And people who buy Bitcoin don't feel any obligation to use BTC, or care about its particulars, just like they don't expect to directly use something made by an aerospace or biotech company that they've invested in.
And Bitcoin is winning in terms of cash influx above all other currencies because they promise not much else, and so far they've delivered. Sure, it's all a Ponzi scheme, and the market is being juiced by Tether, but that only matters if you're one of the people who gets out of the game too late. For now, it looks like there's a lot more game to be played.
Meanwhile, people in the BCH community are busy right now making new videos to explain Bitcoin Cash, or raising funds for some marketing push. Explaining how it works better than real cash, explaining how everyone would be better off using it. And they're essentially screaming this to a world that just doesn't care.
No.
One.
Cares.
Bitcoin Cash isn't selling something that people need. And I say that even though I will argue until I'm blue in the face that BCH can make the world a better place. The problem is, it will make things better once it's established, but it won't get established unless people use it, and people won't begin to use it without an immediate benefit. BCH needs a way to attract people in the now, or it might never get the spark it needs to start a fire.
The 99% of the world who aren't already part of the cryptocurrency world are only going to be interested in one thing about Bitcoin Cash.
Will it provide them with a means to get more money than they have now?
There are two ways it might. One is by investment. Many people believe it's undervalued right now, and that's a good narrative, one I think is likely to be true. Especially over the long term.
However, for a person who is coming from the larger world, who hasn't heard of, and doesn't care about, scaling debates or proof of work or anything like that, Bitcoin Cash doesn't have a lot to differentiate it from the dozens of other coins available. Even if they've never been subjected to the negative propaganda pushed by Bitcoin maximalists, it takes a lot of explaining to get people to see what makes Bitcoin Cash a legitimate contender. "A lot of explaining" is never a good thing when it comes to convincing people.
Bitcoin Cash is at a serious perception disadvantage when it comes to investment, where it has to compete in the casino of coins pumping out bubbles all the time.
But arguably, it's not that important for Bitcoin Cash to compete in that arena. Attracting people who just want the number to go up will elevate BCH's credibility among the masses by raising its market cap now and again. But that doesn't build any foundation.
And foundations are where BCH competes the best. Not the foundations of peer-to-peer freedoms and security and whatever thing that matters to crypto enthusiasts.
Bitcoin Cash is already out in the world doing things that other cryptos are still building towards. I'm talking about services like Noise.cash, which can be explained by simply saying, "It's like Twitter, except you can make money for popular posts."
"You can make money."
That's the part that sells it.
If Bitcoin Cash wants to succeed, it doesn't need to be explained any more. There are countless explanations in all sorts of media. All that explanation is largely hitting only people who are interested in cryptocurrency for its own sake anyway.
What Bitcoin Cash needs is more services like Noise.cash, where you can simply say to people, "It's like X, except you can get paid." You like Twitter? How about no ads and you can make money? It just makes sense, you don't have to explain anything.
There needs to be more services like this.
Instagram, but with tipping.
Facebook, without ads, and likes have real value.
A Reddit where upvotes can be cash.
A podcast player where people can support podcasts with micropayments. A Patreon service where there are no monthly subscriptions or minimum fees. A Meetup.com where people can pay for events right in the app.
The list goes on and on. There are so many services and apps that could be made more appealing by combining them with BCH and allowing people to transfer value around. I'm sure there's more than I can even conceive of.
This is how BCH can compete so much stronger than any other crypto. With masses of people who don't care at all about scaling debates or crypto factions simply using services they want to use, and getting paid in ways they weren't making money before. Not getting rich, just getting new flows of revenue.
Or, it could be people, like those in developing nations, where the ability to make tiny online transactions with no prohibitive fees opens up new ways for money to flow. They'll be able to develop services that matter to them that I'm too privileged to imagine. The point is, it's not the scale that matters, it's the immediacy of the benefit.
No one will be able to deny BCH's value, no matter how much it's decried in Reddit forums, when its transactions are going through the roof on the back of a multitude of services.
If you're thinking of making a service or product that helps grow BCH adoption, then ask yourself, "how does this let people get money they weren't getting before?"
If you can't answer that, well...
Wow. This post says EVERYTHING I have been saying or TRYING to say about not just BCH, but crypto in general. Because you are absolutely right. No one cares about any of the things that BCH is trying to market its uniqueness about. My fiat works perfectly fine, always has, always will.
The very reason I got into crypto was for exactly the reason I think the vast majority do—as you said of course—and that is to make money.
Perhaps I am considered somewhat perverted in the crypto world because the way I view it, I am not looking for crypto grow my crypto. I am looking for crypto to grow my fiat.
For now. Like you said, if BCH is as easily used as fiat is, maybe it's got something for everyone. But right now it's just another coin mixed in with my quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies. A coin, incidentally, that will have to stay in my pocket if no one thinks it's real money.