I think I would push back on the idea that credit and debit cards represent a deadweight loss to the economy. Operating a cash business has its own expenses - theft risk (employee or otherwise), handling time, and (most importantly) you are limiting your customer base to only cash. There's a lot of reasons lots of small businesses are going card only.

For good or bad, a lot of studies have confirmed that cards have overwhelmingly increased consumer spending.

I think the far stronger case is that the industry has no actual incentive to fix the underlying fraud that they are charging merchants to fight. They have done a lot of work to institutionalize the problematic infrastructure and make it almost impossible for startups or outsiders to fix.

Nobody is claiming payment cards adds no value, that'd be absurd. But their cashback programs and other bullshit (see recent itch.io/Steam moral policing story) certainly adds no value.

> I think I would push back on the idea that credit and debit cards represent a deadweight loss to the economy

It’s the anticompetitive actions causing the deadweight loss, not the digital nature of transactions.

> For good or bad, a lot of studies have confirmed that cards have overwhelmingly increased consumer spending.

There is a lot of psychological awareness created when you have to pull a couple singles vs. a Benjamin out of your wallet vs tap card for all amounts.