I had an interesting conversation with someone coming from business/pragmatic background was quite skeptical about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. What good is it for? It burns insane amount of electricity (think carbon emission), Paypal is faster, not sure about charges, and the fact that BTC is somewhat anonymous and decentralized is more a flaw than advantage. Nothing I said made any difference, I just couldn't get through.
However, trying to get through and exchanging arguments was good experience. I got accused of being from another planet :) - I've no problem admitting being an idealist of sorts and yeah, I know my views can be weird, but another planet? No. Same planet, but another time. Time when we transcend socialisms and capitalisms, along with scarcity mindset that leads to hoarding and rat races.
Objectively speaking the biggest good Bitcoin has done so far is getting cryptocurrency and blockchain into public view. Even if technology and computers are black magic to people, the name is known. People heard about Bitcoin, and maybe some got a slight impression of what it is. It's not a problem that Bitcoin has problems - it is not perfect, but it's ok, it wasn't expected to be. It's just the first of its kind. New generations are already here, and future is coming fast. BTC will always be known as the venerable precursor, even when (if?) it gets replaced by something better.
And then - by trying to explain why Bitcoin is great even in its imperfection, I tried to explain what future it could help with creating. It was hard :) It is hard to explain future that is unlike anything we now know. For someone who knows only the limited subset of economic models (managing scarcity) it's hard to see beyond what he knows. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And besides I only have vague glimpses myself, which are not good enough to be present as coherent and clear vision. Not yet. But one day...
