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>> I'll happily give you 2% back after you pay 3% more on everything. cash discounts are very rare, you pay the same price regardless of whether you use cash o

>> I'll happily give you 2% back after you pay 3% more on everything. cash discounts are very rare, you pay the same price regardless of whether you use cash or a credit card pretty much everywhere. also large merchants like walmart, target etc, even though they pay tx fees when the customer pays with a CC they actually WANT the customers to use CCs because according to just about every study out there people buy more stuff when using CCs, so they don't mark their prices up to account for CC tx fees.

revelation 10y ago
Someone is paying for all that and the CC company profit on top. It's going to be a mix of everyone including you and the unlucky ones that aren't financially savvy or have some emergency and slip into a vicious circle of debt interest and more debt. I think by last count the latter group accounted for about half of Americans. So the tradeoff is paying more all the time for gimmicky benefits and having to carry a ridiculous number of plastic cards in your wallet (I actually thought this was a sarcastic caricature of the american consumer. Imagine my surprise.)
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  >> Someone is paying for all that and the CC company profit on top It's a pretty simple equation really. There are issuing banks, acquiring banks, credit card network and payment processors making money off of the merchant-initiated transactions and then the issuing bank also charges the customer interest if they don't pay their bill in full and some issuers charge for cards that carry some special benefits. On the other side of the equation you have merchants paying for the services CC payment industry provides. Most merchants want the customers to use CCs because those customers tend to spend more, they also realize that by accepting CCs they increase their customer base. Talking retail here, online (where things are actually CHEAPER most of the time) CC is king. Prices-wise it's extremely rare merchants to raise the prices when they start accepting CCs or to charge more for non-cash purchases. So now the last piece here is the actual paying customer and their funds. Nobody is forcing the customer to use any specific method of payment. (The only place I'm aware of where cash is not accepted is some airlines won't take cash for on-board purchases.) Using CCs does have it's advantages for the consumer - not having to carry cash or worry whether you have enough cash on you is probably the biggest convenience. Checkout process is typically faster. With Apple pay/Android pay you don't even need to have a physical CC on you. And then there are things like cash back or hotel/airline points etc. There's also chargebacks as an extra layer of consumer protection but that's a bit of a can of worms.

revelation 10y ago

Someone is paying for all that and the CC company profit on top. It's going to be a mix of everyone including you and the unlucky ones that aren't financially savvy or have some emergency and slip into a vicious circle of debt interest and more debt. I think by last count the latter group accounted for about half of Americans. So the tradeoff is paying more all the time for gimmicky benefits and having to carry a ridiculous number of plastic cards in your wallet (I actually thought this was a sarcastic caricature of the american consumer. Imagine my surprise.)

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
>> Someone is paying for all that and the CC company profit on top It's a pretty simple equation really. There are issuing banks, acquiring banks, credit card network and payment processors making money off of the merchant-initiated transactions and then the issuing bank also charges the customer interest if they don't pay their bill in full and some issuers charge for cards that carry some special benefits. On the other side of the equation you have merchants paying for the services CC payment industry provides. Most merchants want the customers to use CCs because those customers tend to spend more, they also realize that by accepting CCs they increase their customer base. Talking retail here, online (where things are actually CHEAPER most of the time) CC is king. Prices-wise it's extremely rare merchants to raise the prices when they start accepting CCs or to charge more for non-cash purchases. So now the last piece here is the actual paying customer and their funds. Nobody is forcing the customer to use any specific method of payment. (The only place I'm aware of where cash is not accepted is some airlines won't take cash for on-board purchases.) Using CCs does have it's advantages for the consumer - not having to carry cash or worry whether you have enough cash on you is probably the biggest convenience. Checkout process is typically faster. With Apple pay/Android pay you don't even need to have a physical CC on you. And then there are things like cash back or hotel/airline points etc. There's also chargebacks as an extra layer of consumer protection but that's a bit of a can of worms.