Ease? It's hardly easy with LocalBitcoin. Coinbase is easier, but their commission is pretty high, yet, it's most of the time cheaper than LocalBitcoins minus the risk plus the liquidity (coming from the fact they use Bitstamp). Exchanges are buggy, often go offline during big swings, and without something like BitcoinWisdom, you can't really grasp what's going on, but often during big swings BitcoinWisdom starts to lag significantly (maybe an API lag issue, but anyway). Exchanges charge a commission as a percentage, so, let's say, on a 10 BTC trade, the lowest fee is 0.2% (after you do a significant volume at Bitstamp or pick BTC-e), i.e. you pay $20. Normally, you pay somewhere around 0.5-0.6% for low volume, which is pretty high, I think. I did buy last month a modest amount of BTC, moved it to Bitstamp, and did several transactions (lost BTC at the end), move it back to Coinbase and sold - I paid over a $1K in fees, but was over on profit due to the increase of BTC/USD. Also, having the BTC exchanges open 24x7 can really have a very negative effect on your health, lifestyle, and work.