Comment by nkurz
2 years ago
> It’s obviously a win for all involved or they wouldn’t be so popular.
Why is it obvious that it's "a win for all involved", as opposed to some big powerful financial companies taking advantage of a bunch of less organized merchants while providing benefit to some subset of cardholders? Obviously the merchants benefit overall from accepting credit cards, but I don't think it's anywhere near obvious that they benefit from funding the rewards programs. If there was any way for them to opt out, I feel a lot of them would. And it's hard to see how the non-rewards cards customers are benefitting from the current system---would any of them choose the current system if given a choice?
I definitely agree that someone is winning from the current system, but I don't think it's obvious that it's everyone.
As the article says, those who get rewards are richer people who spend more money. so merchants are indirectly rewarding their customers who spend the most money.