I'm using Bitpay and Im not cashing it all out. My BTC goes into cold storage and at the end of the week I reconcile my bills and cash out only whats needed to cover those bills. Any BTC left over I keep! So, its not instant by any means, although I could set it up as such.

I also mine BTC and Im not cashing them out either.

I'm with OP here. Many (I won't even say most, because that might be stretching it) of us want to see bitxoin succeed. The way to do that is to demand to be able to spend the things. Who cares if the merchant converts to fiat afterwards? Give them enough transactions, maybe they'll start accepting it directly and cut out the coinbase/bitpay middleman. And who knows, maybe someone in their supply chain accepts it. All of a sudden, there's real transacting occurring.

Or is that not good enough, because the supply chain company will also convert to fiat?  

If you're waiting for a full, closed Bitcoin economy to blossom before you consider spending you coin, then that economy will never get here. You want vendors to accept it, you need to start offering it to them. Only then will it start bubbling through the wider Economy.

If you're not spending because you want to preserve your Bitcoin, simple - rebuy the Bitcoin you just spent. You end up with the same BTC you had before, you neutralize the effect of the vendor converting to fiat, and you increase their BTC denominated sales volume. That last part, especially for publicly traded companies, is something that get reported. Then other companies notice. Then analysts report it, and more people start hearing About it.

Or is the 1% transaction fee that you'll save by not having to rebuy an equivalent amount of BTC worth more to you than the appreciation you hope for when Bitcoin becomes a wider used currency?

It has to start somewhere, but it won't start anywhere until you start spending, rather than hoarding (I'm sorry, "hodling") yours while you tout its superiority to fiat currencies and wait for others to spend.

funny, because I ordered and payed with btc one GTX 970 few days ago.

if bitcoin is so crap then please donate all your bitcoins to seans outpost or another worthwhile service. and go play on the altcoin sub forum. as for bitcoins usefulness, it covers atleast 100,000 legit merchants right now, but your assumption that its only useable for drugs might be more revealing of your personal spending habits, than the spending habits of others

I think the point that you are missing is that transacting in bitcoin is generally more cost efficient then transacting with the traditional fiat based banking system (especially credit cards). As more of the economy adopts to bitcoin they will realize these cost savings, which will cause more of the economy to use bitcoin, and this positive feedback loop will continue

The key for us consumers is to be spending bitcoins where we can, but then replenish our bitcoins by purchasing a similar amount so that we don't put net selling pressure on the price of bitcoin. Then the merchants see the interest without any harm done.

But the real key is for merchants who are enjoying the substantial benefits of bitcoin (no credit card fees, no credit card fraud/chargebacks, counterfeiting, forged and bounced checks and so forth) to get serious and start offering some fixed discounts for people buying with bitcoin. I figure a 5% discount would be reasonable for them, and would match or beat any rewards people get from using rewards credit card programs.

For example, I get 2% cash towards my children's education fund with my main credit card, 3% off restaurant, gas and hotel spending with a 2nd credit card, and 5% off a "special deal" that changes quarterly with my 3rd card. I don't  have a rational case to use bitcoin if there is no discount offered, when I can get those discounts instead.

.. And so is dollar.

Lol why buy when i don't need the item. Anyway, i do exchange or rather say pay with bitcoin to individuals for some offline products.

I only have 0.1 BTC at the moment lol should I buy more and hold them ? Would be nice to see 1 BTC = 10k $

Bingo. I agree with everything here. Why would anyone go through the hassle of acquiring coins to buy something they can easily buy with the swipe of a debit card? Bitcoin's true usefulness is in these areas in which fiat falls short.

As a former low-stakes online poker player and current sports betting enthusiast, I can say without any doubt that bitcoins are FAR superior methods of funding and withdrawing for these activities.

International remittance is another big one. Anyone use Western Union or MoneyGram lately? In the US, unless you are sending to a Spanish-speaking country, be prepared to pony up big fees.

Lastly, Open Bazaar is going to be big one day. Huge even. For all the people that say it is too difficult for the average Joe to use, trust me, the average Joe will figure it out if he wants to use it badly enough. Average Joes figured out Bitcoin when they realized they could use it to buy their favorite drugs on SR.