Because since iPhone took over the world, and people realized that they could get around the GPL with SaaS, it makes a certain type of developer/businessman physically ill to imagine someone loading a local file with a local program.
Due to the success of that no-install, no-config business model, a certain type of consumer can't understand files or folders, or understand why you would have something on your own computer, other than to break syncing.
Long ago, I put together some early release tools/plugins for shopping carts to connect directly to a bitcoind RPC JSON instance. No one could figure out really simple issues, like port forwarding on their routers, setting up bitcoind with authentication and allowing connections from specific IPs rather than %.%.%.%, or even the idea of hosting the web service for their "business".
I think this is a common misconception about bitcoin. I see no reason why there shouldn't eventually be voluntary third party financial services for bitcoin. There could be bitcoin credit agencies, bitcoin small business loans, bitcoin savings accounts, etc. All these services have value, even if they technically carry a higher risk than storing all your bitcoins yourself (provided that you are knowledgeable and competent enough to do so safely).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't most financial services exist with other currencies long before there was government backing (e.g. FDIC for savings accounts)? It's still really early in the bitcoin game, and I wouldn't be surprised if many of the bitcoin services around today are shady or incompetent, but it takes a long time for reputation-based industries to get up and running.
They have value for sure. But how are they going to make money?
In an inflationary fiat currency, (ie: USD), banks who hold on to your savings loan it out and make money. However, given the economics of bitcoins, it seems unlikely to be able to make a profit by loaning out BTC right now (possibly ever, due to the deflationary nature of BTC)
Bitcoin financial services are going to look very different from your typical fiat-based banks. Not only because of Bitcoin's unique benefits and challenges... but because its economics are vastly different from other currencies.
Bitcoin Wallet Services will gain a reputation, but will then fail to earn a profit. They make no business sense.
About a week later, someone from Apple called me on the phone to let me know that BitPak had been removed from the App Store. The guy on the phone sounded like a nervous teenager. I asked him why this had happened, and he said “Because that Bitcoin thing is not legal in all jurisdictions for which BitPak is for sale”. I inquired as to which jurisdictions Bitcoin was deemed to be illlegal in, and he told me “that is up to you to figure out”. I asked him which laws Bitcoin violated, and again, he replied that “that is up to you to determine”. I told the kid on the phone that he has in fact told me nothing and was most unhelpful.
>Why do people think they need a web app for this sort of thing?
They're faster, easier to use, don't require installation and don't require a lot of hard-drive space. 8 GiB database is a bit too much to be wasted on my small SSD, when I can use blockchain.info's wallet.
Bitcoin Wallet stores only the headers of blockchains using Satoshi's simplified payment verification algorithm. It only needs ~1MB of storage right now.
If you want to spend bitcoins from your phone, then the private key must be on the phone somehow.
If you're downloading it "from the cloud" every time, your compromised phone can keylog your password, and the attacker can then download your private key "from the cloud" himself.
Sure, not using your bitcoins anywhere is extremely secure. But lets be honest here: you need to move that private key around with you. The true security measure is to have two wallets, two private keys. Transfer money over to the wallet on your phone only for temporary measures. If it looks like you have had any funky transactions, get a new phone, and a new wallet.
Your "offline wallet" remains secure and encrypted at home. But you need to put some money on your phone somehow. The most secure way of doing that is just leaving it on the phone, and making sure that private key never touches the internet.
The POINT of bitcoin is to be decentralized. Just carry the bitcoin key in your phone directly. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach....
Why do people think they need a web app for this sort of thing?