> If payments regulation worked like that, Stripe and PayPal and Venmo and Apple Pay wouldn’t exist. I don't know how much of the complex regulatory barriers t

> If payments regulation worked like that, Stripe and PayPal and Venmo and Apple Pay wouldn’t exist. I don't know how much of the complex regulatory barriers to the payments industry are designed by industry insiders with an explicit aim to stifle competition, but the fact that there are only a small number of actors in the space indicates that it's far from a "free market". You can have a corrupt market full of lobby-influenced regulatory barriers and still have more than a pure monopoly. Sometimes you have a small number of competitors, or 1-2 firms with the lion's share of the market. Sometimes you have a cartel. Sometimes newcomers even break through regulatory barriers through innovation! All that to say that your evidence doesn't do much to support your claim.