Comment by sinker
7 hours ago
> significant costs to provide
3% of transactions is an incomprehensibly large amount of cash. The systems that exist to transact cash have been in place for decades already. Major countries have already developed their own payment systems because they understand the problem and the cost to society. Most of these are entirely free and AFAICT, they work just fine.
> for example by competition
Sure, if you set up a time machine. Even in that case, there would be no meaningful competition. Someone else would simply occupy the position in the middle of the intersection instead.
"Parasitic" and "toll collection" remain accurate descriptors. What about "entrenched" and "monopolistic"?
Also, even if we strictly looked at the credit side, 3% take is arguably still too much now, even if the mechanics back then did justify the 3% fees. This is why regulators everywhere are now capping fees because the manual "send the imprinted invoices to then sort and get payment" is no longer there (and why they are eager to make fraud harder, unlike the post-facto system that exists in the US)