One upside is this: I can send you money. Credit/debit card and Direct Debits require me to give you enough information to take money from my account. Of course there are excellent legal frameworks in place to ensure that I can get my money back if you take too much.
You can also create payments that only complete if, say, 2 out of 3 parties agree. This can be used as an escrow service: https://blockchain.info/wallet/escrow
I have no need to sell something to an anonymous buyer.
> I will expect enough information from you such that I can take the money.
Why do you need enough information to take my money, why isn't it enough that I just give it to you?
I currently have to give online stores enough information to take whatever money they want from me, and hope that they don't take more. If that information leaks, even more people can take my money.
Normal credit/debit card details are like symmetric encryption. If I give you my details you could pass them on to someone else and pretend to be me. The analogy is more apt with bank details, if I give you enough details to transfer money in you have enough details to transfer money out.
Legal protections are the only reason these systems work, and have been introduced to cover the clear problems with the approach.
Bitcoin is like asymmetric encryption. I can give you an address to send money to, and you cannot take money from it. I can transfer money to you without giving away the information required for you to take anything from my account.
Since the protections for bitcoin aren't legal but technical, international transactions (which have become more common since the introduction of debit & credit cards) become easier and much safer. I can buy something from a website for, say, $10 and risk only that $10. It doesn't matter how sketchy it is, or what their security is like, I'm fairly safe.
This introduces other problems, and I'm not going to pretend like it's some panacea but it does address real problems that exist.
Btw, why isn't ACH/wire transfers a solution? If done properly (unlike USA), they cost a few cents and can be transmitted in less than an hour (not 24/7 yet, though).
Being glib aside, there is a vast population of poorer people who either live in countries with unstable banking systems or are just not profitable for banking. These people will get the most value out of bitcoin.
It's like landline telephones. For people with established land line systems, the value of a cellphone isn't that much. For people who've never had a phone, and wont get land line service, a cell phone is amazing!
ACH/Wire transfers are very slow for Americans, and too much inertia makes it seem like they're not going away soon.
I get what you're saying but...this just doesn't make sense. If this was true, how do you explain the now ubiquitous usage of cell phones? Neither I nor any of my (in their 20s) friends have a land line, because we all have cell phones.
Now cellphones are everywhere, but pre-iphone era USA was rather backwards in terms of mobile phone usage. Also, "majority of young people being mobile-only" was an obvious thing in many much poorer places long before USA. None of the people I know in their 30-ies have had a landline for more than 10 years now - as far as I remember this was not the case in USA back in early 2000's.