> stripping fees off transactions with ZERO value add to the consumer... The explosion of online shops made possible by companies like Stripe enabling secure c

> stripping fees off transactions with ZERO value add to the consumer... The explosion of online shops made possible by companies like Stripe enabling secure credit card processing without imposing PCI DSS compliance on small businesses would disagree with you on whether there’s value to the consumer. If nothing else, greater variety of shops available means greater choice, which is generally considered good for the consumer. Or PayPal, which allows the unbanked population to load funds to a widely-accepted online wallet and actually participate in online marketplaces, which they might otherwise be unable to do. Or Affirm, which provides on-demand credit to consumers and lets them amortize large one-time costs over a few months, enabling them to afford, e.g., tuition when they otherwise might not be able to. (Tuition is maybe a bad example since most universities already offer tuition financing options; but online education services frequently don’t)