OP might be living in the future a bit, because yeah, fees are still too high right now, and there's too much friction. For now.
But in principle I agree. If you have a wallet set up and are used to using it, it's pretty quick and easy, and the money settles faster than ACH in the US which take at least a day if not 3-5? Although in Canada settlement with Interac is almost instant, maybe 3 minutes to an hour.
Setting up Stripe is something you can only do with approval from the authorities, though, so e.g. sex workers can't use it.
> But in principle I agree. If you have a wallet set up and are used to using it, it's pretty quick and easy,
Once you've overcome all the hurdles it's quick and easy isn't exactly encouraging. I'm not going to claim that it's easy to open a bank account/get a debit card, but they're pretty close to required in the western world these days so people have already overcome that hrudle.
> and the money settles faster than ACH in the US which take at least a day if not 3-5
This is a US problem that can be solved by regulation, not a technical problem. SEPA transfers clear in seconds in the EU. If you're using a payment network like Visa or Mastercard, you don't need to wait for processing (which can be 5-10 days), you only need authorization which is normally in the order of seconds. There is an element of trust here for sure, but you're trusting your Merchant Provider, and if you don't trust them to pay you you need another Merchant Provider _anyway_.
> Setting up Stripe is something you can only do with approval from the authorities, though, so e.g. sex workers can't use it.
Coinbase requires you to go through a KYC too, meaning it's unlikely that a person who is currently unable to use an existing Merchant provider will be able to use any of the larger exchanges.
But in principle I agree. If you have a wallet set up and are used to using it, it's pretty quick and easy, and the money settles faster than ACH in the US which take at least a day if not 3-5? Although in Canada settlement with Interac is almost instant, maybe 3 minutes to an hour.
Setting up Stripe is something you can only do with approval from the authorities, though, so e.g. sex workers can't use it.