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.
replyThis is fundamentally looking at it the wrong way.
replyWhy do we need my bank to send money to your bank via Visa or the Federal Reserve or any such thing, instead of having my bank send money directly to your bank? All they need to do is both support the same openly specified protocol for transferring money.
That's what Brazilian pix does and the reason visa/Mastercard and the US government want to kill it
replyListen to the Visa episode of The Acquired Podcast, and you'll change your mind.
replyWe used to call those checks!
replyIt'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.
reply> Fundamentally 1-3% is actually a very competitive rate for organizing the easy transfer of money and handling fraud
replyThis is a very US-centric take. In the UK, EU and Australia, interchange rates are capped at more like 0.2/0.3%.
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.
replyWhat you are missing is that a market left to itself is not necessarily competitive when monopolies/duopolies form.
replyProves what point? GP was saying the government would only increase fees.
reply0% because it’s a service that’s so obviously should be provided by the government is better.
replyHaving been a customer of a government run postal bank, I'm going to hard disagree.
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