Visa/MasterCard are essentially a network of banks, they only get a small percentage of the interchange rate. Most of it goes to the issuing bank which they use for rewards.

This line of thinking also ignores an important aspect of credit cards that benefit the merchant. 2-2.5% is not that much when it means you can sell to people without worrying about if they can pay for it. When that customer ultimately doesn't pay their CC bill(look at how high CC debt is), the issuing bank still needs to pay the merchant.

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barbazoo 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> 2.5% is not that much when it means you can sell to people without worrying about if they can pay for it.

Is that not how these other payment providers work? Would they let a transaction through that won’t be settled afterward?

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blasphemers 6 hours ago | parent [-]

What payment provider is allowing payments without accessing the customers current funds? With a CC, you can charge $1000 with only $100 in your bank account. That is not something you can do with ACH, check, cash, etc. Pay Now Pay Later providers like Affirm would also allow this, but I'm not sure what that looks like from a merchant POV

	▲	barbazoo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh ok so you can’t pay with money you don’t have. I wish that cost wasn’t socialized.