> Remember, Visa and American Express still get their take and they > still handle all the billing. Apple is just charging a convenience > tax that would be

> Remember, Visa and American Express still get their take and they > still handle all the billing. Apple is just charging a convenience > tax that would be well worth it to internet brands and retailers. One of the "Steve Jobs lessons learned" I read about was when they were behind in handling music on computers (unable to burn CDs on the iMac), they didn't just catch up with everyone else by just introducing a CD burner; they leapfrogged everybody by creating an online music platform in iTunes. Similar for payments, what are the odds that Apple leapfrogs everybody and becomes the equivalent of Visa and Amex, taking it all for themselves? If they offered better discount rates, they could piggyback off of the existing credit card companies but encourage merchants to directly accept iPayments and get a few percent knocked off of the discount rate. For example, instead of N% for Apple's fee plus $0.30 and 2.75% for the credit card fee, it would be a flat N%, whatever value N is.