To be fair, it's mostly a mutually beneficial relationship. There are studies that show CC users tend to spend more at merchants than those that use cash. This

To be fair, it's mostly a mutually beneficial relationship. There are studies that show CC users tend to spend more at merchants than those that use cash. This logically makes sense, because you may not have enough cash on hand and/or the feel of watching a limited amount of paper money leaving your pocket is different from swiping a chunk of plastic. For online merchants, CCs are the only thing that allow most of them to stay in business. For something where the transaction was irreversible (mailing cash, bitcoin), as a consumer, I would almost never take a chance on ordering from an online merchant that wasn't large and established. That's not to say that the CC companies don't abuse their position. However, most/many businesses have 'done the math' and realized the pros outweigh the cons.