Mostly the curse of the first mover, with a dash of corruption for spice.

Part of it is "the curse of good enough": the US has had good credit-card style infrastructure for over a century and digital infrastructure since the POTS days. Part of it is that we lost our appetite for anti-trust in the 80s. Part of it is that the price structure of this infrastructure has wormed its way into everything in a way that is difficult to undo without causing high-visibility inconvenience for low-visibility benefit. The good-enough is the enemy of the good.

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skrause 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's mainly because they aren't forced by regulation.

Germany is another first mover with decades old banking systems and standards. German banks also dragged their feet supporting SEPA Instant or they added additional fees so that barely anybody wanted to use it.

Then the EU stepped in with regulation: If you support classic SEPA transactions, you also have to support SEPA Instant for the same price (which is almost always free for retail banking accounts). And suddenly banks did.

	▲	smallmancontrov 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, this could be fixed with regulation -- but whoever did the regulation would have to contend with angry fools complaining about how "the government took away my credit card rewards!!!" for years and of course the credit card companies themselves would stir and amplify those voices as much as possible.

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devilbunny an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US also has incredibly pro-consumer regulation over credit cards, compared to most of the world. There is no such thing as "not protecting your card" as a way for the bank to get out of paying for credit card fraud. Legally, you are liable for the first $50 of unauthorized charges, and that's it (though most cards will cover all of it).

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fn-mote 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> the price structure of this infrastructure has wormed its way into everything in a way that is difficult to undo without causing high-visibility inconvenience for low-visibility benefit

I think the “recent” change allowing merchants to pass along the credit card fees is a step in the right direction.

I think a lot of people would still choose fraud protection for the extra costs, though.