I don't think it's about bitcoins. Wikimedia has also noticed that donations can decrease if you offer too many donation methods. They've seen this without bitcoins. Maybe donors feel like with all of those methods available someone else is already donating? Or maybe they get bewildered by the excess of choice?

Speculation: Would it help to offer two major methods (card, PayPal) prominently, and hide many more behind a small "other" link?

This is almost exactly how Wikimedia accepts Bitcoin payments, behind an "other" link, with credit card and paypal being shown as the only two options if you click on "donate". In fact, it's kind of hard to find all of their payment options. The "other" button actually is called "problems with donating?"

My suspicion is that people feel it's "trying too hard" to get donations

If it doesn't feel like a "one-click donation" I'm prone to skip it.

I pretty much see taking bitcoin as an automatic sign to be wary of a business. I have walked away from online stores or services because they offered it.

At best, it shows an incredibly shaky understanding of how to build a sound business. At worst it signals a level of shadiness I don't want my money anywhere near.

EDIT: I am surprised that a community which so regularly likes to makes claims at business acumen would have so many eager commenters who would need to actually have it explained why use of a currency with more price fluctuations that the Zimbabwe dollar, and which cannot be reliably exchanged for other currencies because its money changing firms go out of business or turn out to be open frauds on a near-monthly bases, is not a sound business decision.

Why do you believe that accepting Bitcoin automatically makes a business shady? Often the companies I see offering bitcoin payments are the ones that are a bit ahead of the tech curve and want to try something experimental (e.g. Wordpress, Newegg, Reddit), but not so big that their cost to implement the option would be really high (Facebook, Amazon, Walmart).

To me it seems nonsensical to walk away from a company because they offer a certain payment option. Maybe you can elaborate on why you feel that way?

But why would you think that? You realize that Newegg, Dell, TigerDirect and Overstock all accept bitcoin right?

Can you elaborate as to why you came to this conclusion. What factors / information drove you to associate bitcoin with an unsound or shady business ?

I sympathize with those who feel that explaining there views to people who don't know a lot about the topic is a waste of time. But if you decide that for a given topic, don't go to a forum and make claims! If you make claims, be prepared to back them up; if you aren't prepared, refrain from making claims.

An exception is if you have authority that will shift people's beliefs even without backup.

Another exception can be if you merely post links, and don't endorse any statements beyond that link. Then you're performing the service of providing more information, and any problems can be taken up with the original author.

But making claims and refusing to back them up or clarify on account of trollphobia is borderline troll itself.

Did you post the wrong link? This is a public discussion forum; asking questions is generally not considered rude. You're free to ignore the question as well.

You accused alykhalid of acting in bad faith. You made it clear you don't want any questions about the whys of that so instead of asking I shall simply write this and downvote.

Funny enough, I remember people having this exact sentiment about PayPal in 2001.

Yeah, breaking VISA's hold on online purchases is a pretty shady goal.

They did a longer test as a follow-up and in that case found there was no difference at all with mentioning bitcoin in the same footer: https://fundraising.mozilla.org/the-un-dramatic-conclusion-d...

I'm highly skeptical that it was just offering bitcoin that reduced donations.

For example, if they're making an API call to the payment provider on each page load to generate a new bitcoin payment button, the page load might be slower, and it might be that additional slowness which accounts for the change.

The conclusion was not scientific.

Maybe there's some kind of effect of people starting to reason about what they give away. Looking at a high volatility commodity like Bitcoin alongside the 'normal' payment options probably triggers some unconscious thinking about the right moment when to give away money, the right amount etc, which all leads to indecision and lowers conversions.