One factor that never seems to come up in these discussions is that while businesses might not like credit card fees, they also don’t like all the issues with cash: managing it, transporting it, losing it to employee theft, etc. The cost of cash transactions isn’t 0.

Same argument for people: managing cash is a pain, swiping a card is easy. Contesting a transaction or fraud is way easier (infinitely easier?) with a card than cash. Having day to day liquidity even without ever carrying a balance is nice.

Is all this worth $9.2B across the economy? Maybe not, but again, certainly worth more than 0.

▲

gruez 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Is all this worth $9.2B across the economy? Maybe not, but again, certainly worth more than 0.

Nobody's arguing that credit card companies are proving zero value, only that they're charging more than what can be "justified" (whatever that means). That's why in europe the interchange rates are capped at some amount to reflect that.

	▲	alex43578 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Europe is artificially capping the interchange rates - that doesn’t mean that’s the market price for that service. As for America, there’s 4 card networks, and no explicit regulation preventing you from starting another (just the huge regulatory burdens involved with any money-processing business, PCI, etc). If they were charging so much more than is “justified”, couldn’t one of the dozens of well-funded players in the fintech space swoop in? Couldn’t Walmart fall back to cash and a “Walmart card”? Instead, we see even goliaths like Walmart spending money and time to support newer features like tap to pay because it reduces fraud losses and customers just prefer it. The “justified” thing is silly - is Apple charging more than is justified because they make a profit?
	▲	14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲

jen20 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don’t really care what businesses want at this point: my default position is that they are trying to scam me in some way and must be handled appropriately. Credit cards are a must-have in this situation, since they provide a mechanism other than hope to deal with recalcitrant merchants without wasting my time.