4 ms·

That’s such a misrepresentation. The credit card fees exist because customers get benefits like delivery insurance, return insurance, holiday insurance, cashbac

by gizmo 3y ago

That’s such a misrepresentation. The credit card fees exist because customers get benefits like delivery insurance, return insurance, holiday insurance, cashback, free credit, etc. If you just want to transfer bits you can do that for next to no fees (in Europe, where digital payments without consumer protections are common).

panarky 3y ago
> such a misrepresentation Exactly. All the talk about fees misses the point because accepting and securing paper money is also very costly. And the provocateur's stunt in the article also misses the point, because electronic payments for groceries aren't a dystopian tyranny no matter how loud he screams about it. And the crypto skeptics are missing the point when they say you can't buy a coffee with bitcoin, because buying coffee is a solved problem, tap to pay with a bank card works just fine. And the crypto advocates are missing the point when they say that lightning or solana or something else will solve the coffee-buying conundrum because that's not a problem that needs solving. The real point about cash payments and crypto is whether people should be able to make large person-to-person payments that are not trivially surveilled or controlled. In a free society, should people have this capability? Or are the dangers of illegal transactions so great that this freedom must be eliminated? Europe has mostly free and mostly instant SEPA transfers which are one answer. Large payments are easy and cheap, though they are not secret or untraceable. Perhaps that's a reasonable trade-off. The US payments system is a mess by comparison, where we have no privacy paired with extreme inconvenience. Try to buy a $20,000 car from a private party on a holiday weekend to see how well that works.
- trogdor 3y ago
  >Try to buy a $20,000 car from a private party on a holiday weekend to see how well that works. I’m not convinced that spur-of-the-moment, trustless private-party $20,000 transactions are a significant problem. Every system has edge cases.
StopTheTechies 3y ago
Debit cards have the same processing fees, the credit cards are a complete red herring. If anything credit cards are much more evil than just charging the processing fee.
atmartins 3y ago
Cash back? Attention is finite and I don't want a payment processor forcing me to pay a fee so I can turn around and try and earn it back. How about lower the fee and let me keep that 1%?? Then I can earn interest on it for the month, not them. And then I don't have to read additional terms and conditions, use it or lose it, book travel through their marked up garbage store, etc. It's insane to me that you'd defend cash back as some kind of advantage to consumers when it's anything but. It's a crappy product that you can choose to avoid but I want the up front transaction fee reduced by the same amount.
- multjoy 3y ago
  They're talking about being able to take cash out at the point of sale, not the shit discount model.
- santoshalper 3y ago
  Mine is just literal cash I can apply to the balance on my card. Obviously the fact that cash back exists means that the card companies are making even more money on the fees. However, since most stores charge an identical amount whether you use CC or cash, everyone is collectively paying it and you might as well get the cash/miles/rewards back. The FCBA coverage, on the other hand, has some real value. That said, even though I have used it a few times, I doubt it has saved me as much as I've spent in CC fees.

by gizmo 3y ago

panarky 3y ago

> such a misrepresentation Exactly. All the talk about fees misses the point because accepting and securing paper money is also very costly. And the provocateur's stunt in the article also misses the point, because electronic payments for groceries aren't a dystopian tyranny no matter how loud he screams about it. And the crypto skeptics are missing the point when they say you can't buy a coffee with bitcoin, because buying coffee is a solved problem, tap to pay with a bank card works just fine. And the crypto advocates are missing the point when they say that lightning or solana or something else will solve the coffee-buying conundrum because that's not a problem that needs solving. The real point about cash payments and crypto is whether people should be able to make large person-to-person payments that are not trivially surveilled or controlled. In a free society, should people have this capability? Or are the dangers of illegal transactions so great that this freedom must be eliminated? Europe has mostly free and mostly instant SEPA transfers which are one answer. Large payments are easy and cheap, though they are not secret or untraceable. Perhaps that's a reasonable trade-off. The US payments system is a mess by comparison, where we have no privacy paired with extreme inconvenience. Try to buy a $20,000 car from a private party on a holiday weekend to see how well that works.

trogdor 3y ago
>Try to buy a $20,000 car from a private party on a holiday weekend to see how well that works. I’m not convinced that spur-of-the-moment, trustless private-party $20,000 transactions are a significant problem. Every system has edge cases.

StopTheTechies 3y ago

Debit cards have the same processing fees, the credit cards are a complete red herring. If anything credit cards are much more evil than just charging the processing fee.

atmartins 3y ago

Cash back? Attention is finite and I don't want a payment processor forcing me to pay a fee so I can turn around and try and earn it back. How about lower the fee and let me keep that 1%?? Then I can earn interest on it for the month, not them. And then I don't have to read additional terms and conditions, use it or lose it, book travel through their marked up garbage store, etc. It's insane to me that you'd defend cash back as some kind of advantage to consumers when it's anything but. It's a crappy product that you can choose to avoid but I want the up front transaction fee reduced by the same amount.

multjoy 3y ago
They're talking about being able to take cash out at the point of sale, not the shit discount model.
santoshalper 3y ago
Mine is just literal cash I can apply to the balance on my card. Obviously the fact that cash back exists means that the card companies are making even more money on the fees. However, since most stores charge an identical amount whether you use CC or cash, everyone is collectively paying it and you might as well get the cash/miles/rewards back. The FCBA coverage, on the other hand, has some real value. That said, even though I have used it a few times, I doubt it has saved me as much as I've spent in CC fees.