I like the idea of the Bitcoin faucet, but it seems like there's something important missing: while trading 0.02 bitcoins with a friend is a great demonstration of how transactions work, it doesn't teach anything about spending directly on goods-- which is what the average person associates with _real_ money (as opposed to, say, monopoly dollars).  The answer on the wiki (I think) is to do some work for BTC, in which case it's no longer a demo*, or to trade a currency like dollars for BTC, which just makes it seem like one is spending dollars in a roundabout (and unnecessarily risky) way.

So do the early adopters who have amassed many BTC currently subsidize any of the sites that sell goods or services for BTC?  If not, I think it would be a good idea for select small, cheap items (or maybe even a music download).  So a nerd merit badge which is currently 1 BTC could be sold for 0.02 if someone subsidizes that sale for 0.98 BTC.  (For whatever the item is, maybe make it one per transaction/physical address, and maybe change the item being subsidized each week or so.)  So in this case every 0.98 used as a subsidy equals 1 individual who has gone all the way through the BTC transaction process, and received a _real_ item in return.  So you'd be encouraging participation in the bitcoin economy, and the only risk to the newcomer would be giving the name/shipping address to the merchant (for a music download there wouldn't even be that).

Encourages more people to get on the network, sparks interest in the economy, etc...

I couldn't find a thread about something like this, but apologies if I overlooked something and this is already happening.

* I think this is the point where people (wrongly) associate Bitcoin with pyramid schemes: in a pyramid scheme the scammer is _always_ asking the newcomer to do work, so in a way the free 0.02 BTC sounds like "bait".  But I'm unaware of any pyramid scheme in which early adopters give bait to newcomers then spend way more of their _own_ money so the newcomer can purchase actual goods for %0 risk.