Broadly speaking I'd usually agree, except that Visa/Mastercard are a two-company oligopoly at this point, with effectively no meaningful competition. Yes, other payment mechanisms exist, but consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards.

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TZubiri 2 days ago | parent [-]

There's a gajillion currencies, banking systems, wallets, crypto, amex.

Widen your category definition and you'll see it.

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JoshTriplett 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I say again:

> consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards

For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. They are not viable alternatives for the vast majority of purposes.

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cesarb 2 days ago | parent [-]

> For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business.

I would add a qualifier to your statement: for the vast majority of global online businesses. An online business serving a single country could make use of country-specific payment systems, which are often very popular. If a Brazil-only online business accepted only payments through PIX and boleto bancário, that could result in less business, but not orders of magnitude less business.

	▲	JoshTriplett 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sure; that was exactly the kind of case that previously led me to edit my comment to add the "for the vast majority" qualifier. Similarly, bank payments are popular in European countries because there are convenient wrappers around them, if you're only selling to certain countries. Along the same lines, I qualified it as "online businesses" because there are still some brick-and-mortar businesses that require cash. It's still limiting your business, but less so, especially if you're in a context where people expect many businesses to be that way (e.g. a farmer's market). But for online businesses that aren't country-specific, which I'd argue is the vast majority of online businesses? You accept credit cards or you get a lot less business. (And the next-most-popular option, PayPal, does even more of this kind of thing than Visa and MasterCard do, and much more capriciously.)
	▲	svachalek 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't think the debate people are having is about Brazil.

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its-summertime 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And how many are viable alternatives?