Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete to blame these fees on "the power of the free market" when the visa / mastercard duopoly exists due to regulations making the entry barrier to creating a new card network essentially infinite

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abirch 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Anyone is free to use discover and it works for most merchants in the USA.

American Express leverages the fact that most consumers don’t care what the merchant is charged

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IshKebab 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think it's due to regulations. It's just a natural monopoly due to network effects. Any new entrant has to convince hundreds of payment processors and retailers to accept their cards before anyone even has them. Regulations are a trivial barrier compared to that.

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TehCorwiz 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I think that was parent’s point. That the US does not have as free a market.

	▲	randallsquared 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> EU & UK cap it suggests that was not the GP's point.