This is the government's problem. I tend to be on the side of less government, but it is so obvious that payment facilitation should be a service provided by the government. The government is just allowing corporations to collect rents, because they are lazy and incompetent.

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bnjms 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They’re more like taxes than rents. It’s a constant cost applied to all goods because of the ubiquity of use means we pay with or without playing the credit card/payments game.

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guywithahat an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not a government problem, it's a competition problem. Fundamentally 1-3% is actually a very competitive rate for organizing the easy transfer of money and handling fraud. Merchants would rather the cost be free, and banks may want a larger slice of the pie, but until someone comes up with a better way of paying money for both sides this is the best we have. If government got involved all that could happen is fees would increase and then we'd miss out on future efficiency improvements and savings.

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stevesimmons 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> Fundamentally 1-3% is actually a very competitive rate for organizing the easy transfer of money and handling fraud

This is a very US-centric take. In the UK, EU and Australia, interchange rates are capped at more like 0.2/0.3%.

	▲	gruez 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That actually proves the point, because a market left to itself arrives at 2-3%, and it only goes lower if the government is dictating a rate.

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MBCook 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

0% because it’s a service that’s so obviously should be provided by the government is better.