I've known for years the money in the bank isn't really mine. It's not even real money. It's just IOU notes, and even that is just promises to pay pieces of paper. That's why I always held savings in gold. But I did have an experience similar to yours that made me think about how much freedom cryptocurrency gives consumers. I was in the grocery store, and was trying to buy about $120 worth of groceries. After ringing them all up, the credit card company denied my transaction even though I had enough money in my account. I had to spend 20 minutes on the phone answering questions about where I had lived or worked in the past in order to prove I am really me. Eventually, I got the groceries. But that really made me see how bad our current payment systems are, and it made me realize that consumers aren't going to put up with it for much longer, now that there are alternatives.
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Gold is a great storage of value. Good thing you keep savings in gold. That should never go away. It is very limited which doesn't work well for a currency though. A currency needs to be plentiful and free to transfer. Bitcoin is more like gold because it is very limited like gold and does not work well as a currency since it cost to transfer. I think STEEM is a great currency as it is plentiful and is free to transfer. It is also way faster than a credit card. Even Bitcoin is way faster than a credit card. A credit card only makes a promissory note to pay the merchant. The transaction doesn't happen until a month later. A STEEM transaction takes 3 seconds. The merchants also doesn't get hit with fees for accepting STEEM like they do when accepting the credit cards. I think both shoppers and merchants will be in for a wonderful surprise if they switch to STEEM.
I personally wouldn't accept Steem in exchange for the work I do outside of the Steem network. It's too volatile for my taste. (I would accept Steem as a payment method but would not be willing to price my work in Steem or hold it after the transaction) I think Steem Power is a really great long-term investment though. It's especially good if you use the platform because then you are partially investing in yourself.
As far as gold is concerned, the transaction fees in gold crypto don't bother me because they are so small. For example, AgAu gold charges 0.1%: https://bit.ly/2JPSX9A That's a lot better than the 2.4% to 4% charged by Paypal. Unfortunately though, there are no exchange-traded gold-backed cryptos yet. I am waiting for AgAu gold to come out early next year.
For now, I am still accepting Paypal payments from clients. But I look forward to the day when everyone around me is accepting crypto, whether it be in the form of GUSD, TUSD, PAX, AgAu gold, Steem, Bitcoin or whatever. Worse case scenario, if I don't like whatever cryptocurrency they are accepting, I can wait until the actual transaction to buy that particular crypto. After all, it's easy to switch from one crypto to another, but a lot slower and more costly to switch from fiat to crypto and back (or from one fiat currency to another). So I'd rather pay in any crypto rather than fiat.