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I think the opposite: credit card users subsidize the use of cash. I hardly believe the former can be more expensive than the latter – if you take into account
by Yaggo 16y ago
I think the opposite: credit card users subsidize the use of cash. I hardly believe the former can be more expensive than the latter – if you take into account all the physical effort required to replace / collect / move around the pieces of paper / metal.
- silencio 16y agoI addressed this in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1591129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1591129. To continue addressing it, credit card processing does not end at a card swipe. Unlike for internet retailers, brick and mortar can have more steps to take to complete a transaction, and routine things like tip adjustments takes just as much time as collecting and moving pieces of paper and metal. Other fees collected in the process of accepting credit cards can be just as ridiculous as the fees for hiring an armored service to take care of the cash, or the time/effort required to go to the bank. Or employees stealing cash. It's ultimately difficult to determine if credit cards are in fact cheaper than cash in a broad sense, although that's something you usually can figure out on a per-business basis.
- barrkel 16y agoYou're probably overlooking the portion of fees that credit card using customers can reclaim via cashbacks and rewards.
- Yaggo 16y agoWell, I was talking more from a theoretical point of view (plastic/virtual money vs. cash). The current credit card model surely has its issues.