Alex,
You're logic is correct. While the payment processors are facilitating an enviornment for increased demand, they are also putting downward pressure on a fairly thin market when they have to be a continual seller to convert the Bitcoins to dollars. I think the hope overtime is that the market becomes much thicker and various derivatives pop up to help them hedge this with less disruption.
Miners are also are creating a bit of downward pressure on the price because it is their incentive to convert their newly minted coins to dollars in a similar process.
So the hope is that someone from the demand side keeps coming in and picking up this supply. I think right now it is people who are holding them as investments (dollar alternatives) and in that case they would be less interested in using them to buy things.
Perhaps increased public awareness or legislation would be a catalyst to change this. I don't think it's going to be a make or break but it's definitely a little bit of a sticking point.
I agree with your second argument. These companies add utility to bitcoin. This will increase demand and force the value of BTC higher. However, regarding your first argument: the act of selling something does not create or increase demand. Bitpay and Coinbase are increasing the supply of BTC on the market and creating a downward force on the price of BTC. I doubt anyone could say for sure which force is greater. – Alex Millar – 2014-03-24T05:20:42.970
@AlexMillar You can't sell a Bitcoin you don't have. If McDonald's offered to trade tissues for cheeseburgers, the demand for tissues would go up. – David Schwartz – 2014-03-27T23:34:00.850
That's a complicated example, because tissues and burgers go together so well! Ignoring that issue, tissues would definitely become easier to get if you could buy then with burgers, and more tissues would be sold. I would argue this would be due to decreased price/availability, not increased demand. But maybe we are getting into semantics now. – Alex Millar – 2014-03-28T16:29:03.067