What really did it for me was when I finally put down the money to try out the altcoins and all of the various exchanges and 3rd party apps involved with them. This is a complex machine and it doesn't become obvious just how ground-breaking it is until you've tried it for yourself against the old way of doing things. The fact that I can just install a plugin and make transactions on Ether Delta without ever opening any sort of profile or dealing with any spread really startled me. The fee never touched $1 usd. It would have been between $5 - 10 USD at any other "reputable" financial institution.