True, but now with Bitcoin a teen can do work for pay over the internet (I assume minors cannot easily get a paypal account). I've seen teens draw incredible art, make avatars, do minecraft related tasks, light programming, etc. So while it's not easy, there is a way for them to obtain it.
I remember scheming for ways to make money online when I was a teen, but my only options were to get someone to send me cash in the mail, or have my parents cash a check (after asking me a bunch of questions as to why someone was sending their 14yr old a $100 check).
Hop over to btc-e and watch thousands of teens daytrade altcoins while chatting, it's eye opening.
They are notoriously difficult to work with as a vendor. I had someone pay for the last milestone of a project, then after the goods were delivered, filed a chargeback with their credit card company. The CC company ruled in his favor, and Paypal offered no way to dispute. I was left with the -$1,500 balance
They can, very easily. I've had one of my accounts banned after applying for their debit card, but I was able to open another one with the same SSN and still haven't been caught.
These are a stop gap measure. Say I have $500 and I put $400 into Xbox points and $100 into Steam points. Then some new game comes out on PC but I'm out of cash because its all tied into Xbox points. This transfer is one-way, so my money is now stuck.
With bitcoin, or some other non-vendor middle-man, I have value sitting in my wallet ready for any transaction that accepts this currency. For someone without easy access to credit, buying a couple bitcoins (or some other cryptocurrency) seems like the better move.
Once you can purchase content directly using XBT, instead of merely using it as a funding source, you might have a use case.
Otherwise, most people would just buy a prepaid Debit card. It solves actually the same problem you're saying XBT solves, but it's accepted at vastly mere merchants.
There's still a big problem out there with foreign transactions and the credit card system. Paypal kinda handles this in some scenarios, but it still is unsolved, especially when you're discussing non-trivial amounts of money.
That said we also have pre-paid debit cards in some stores now, so it's even easier to have one of those.
(Also it is not uncommon at all for teenagers to have a debit card)
Not true. They just need to sell something illegal online and they got bitcoin. :trollface:
Which makes it rather difficult to obtain bitcoin in the first place.
> Knowing you can now exchange bitcoin for Xbox points makes accepting bitcoin a lot more attractive.
One major reason for the popularity of the cards you can buy in various grocery/department stores providing points/credit for the various stories (Google Play, iTunes, Nintendo, Xbox, etc) is precisely because you can buy them with cash, redeem them at the online stores, and use the resulting credit to make purchases, all without using a credit card. This really doesn't solve that problem, it just shifts that problem to "how do you obtain bitcoin?"
Idea for a business model: make Bitcoin gift cards, and get them into the various grocery/department stores.