I can think of a couple of other reasons.

• No ongoing fees. A gold dealer will add a margin when they sell you the gold. But after that you can stash it in a safe place for as long as you like, and it costs you nothing.
• If everything goes wrong in your country, you can shove the gold in your pockets and flee across the border. I will leave it up to you to decide whether this is a significant risk.

I want to invest in gold.

I certainly traded a lot of gold, but I would call it trading, not investing.

What's the better option?

I would truly encourage you to do this:

1. Go buy a kilobar (do not pay more than a tiny amount over spot; if someone wants more than a tiny amount over spot laugh and go elsewhere).

I would encourage you to have nothing at all to do with gold until you actually have a bar in hand. Call me a mystic, but that's my opinion.

2. Next go to one of the two gold-storers (goldmoney or bullionvault) and buy, let's say, $1000 worth of "digi-gold"

I would encourage you to have nothing at all to do with ETFs until you experiment with digi-gold. Call me practical, but that's my opinion.

3. Open a brokerage account (but NOT f@&(#$ r@#$@#hood)* and buy say $1000 of an ETF.

I urge you to do nothing serious until you have the experience of all three.

The very simple answer to your question ...

(A) If you are gonna hold some gold long-term (more than a year) just buy kilobars and don't even consider any other option.^† End of story.

(B) As outlined above. There is absolutely on cost or downside to trying all three (a couple dollars commissions here and there). Go try all three. It would be madness to take one route or the other before trying all three.

Furthermore ...

Don't forget, with commodities you can simply trade the futures.

(You know, like when you hear in a movie about someone trading FCOJ or Oil or whatever.)

Gold trades on comex, so GC. (You'd be trading GCK or whatever at the moment.)

It's extremely easy to do, but is very wired, so as with say heroin, take care.

Again that's for trading.

As I say above, If you are gonna hold some gold long-term (more than a year) just buy kilobars and don't even consider any other option.† End of story.

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^† ok, if you're incredibly rich, buy lbma bars, not kilobars!

This question can only be answered when you decide why you are buying gold.

• If it is to speculate on the price of gold, then buy "paper".
• If it is to hedge against inflation, then buy "paper".
• If it is to protect against the coming apocalypse, then buy "physical", and get it delivered to you.