I've been a business owner for more than 10 years. I know there is a lot of argument on this issue, but the bottom line is that bitcoin is more convenient to use, at least from a small business owner's perspective.

When I started, I only accepted cash and checks. Cash was alright, but not many people went for that option. And checks cost me literally thousands of dollars in bounces and fraudulent charge backs.

When I first started taking credit cards, I did it through paypal virtual terminal. First I had to "prove" to them that I was a legitimate business, which required me jumping through a bunch of hoops. Once I was in the system I always had to have secure internet access and take a ton of information from the customer, including billing address and the code on the back of the card. The system often gave me cryptic error codes. The most inconvenient part is that it required the customer to trust me completely with all their sensitive information. This cost me $30 a month, 4% of each charge, and 30% had to stay in escrow for three months!

I later moved to a traditional phone line swipe system. This cost me $210 a month (including the extra phone line), and $0.50 + 1.8% for each transaction. As well as the card swiping equipment (about $300). The downside was that I could only do it at my studio, not on the road. Trying to record information to charge later led to far too many "failed" charges, much worse than when I accepted checks.

Bitcoin's costs are similar, when you account for all the various fees and risks you take (minimized by having moving prices and always selling immediately). But the simple fact of the matter is that there is no way on earth I could arrange for my fellow forum members to give me small donations in a simple, quick, and safe way using cash, checks or credit/debit. With bitcoins I can. The is a wholly new and unique feature of bitcoins. It can be easily integrated into anything, and the sender is always 100% safe. They never have to expose sensitive information. Although, it is a little easier to be scammed, as the sender has no chargeback options.

The upshot here, is that there is value in bitcoin that is not reproduced elsewhere. As a small businessman, I could have only wished for something as easy and in my control as bitcoins to have been around when I started. The main problem now is adoption. Once bitcoins start picking up traction, I could see businesses everywhere using it.

The current impracticality of actually walking into a location and transferring bitcoin will probably soon be solved by the market -- most likely by mobile apps and the great idea of firstbits. I really can imagine a future within 10 years where I can walk into a fast food joint and use my phone to pay with bitcoins. It isn't a 100% thing, but to me, it seems plausible. It really is a revolutionary idea that may change the world. But even if bitcoins don't "change the face of currency", and even if no one ever tries to accept bitcoins face to face where traditional currency methods are used, being adopted for even a small percentage of online micro-purchases would still give bitcoins tremendous value.