I mean you can say the inverse about merchant fees and large purchases. I think Stripe's way of doing things is better because it's inline with the actual expe

I mean you can say the inverse about merchant fees and large purchases. I think Stripe's way of doing things is better because it's inline with the actual expenses they incurr. To their servers, there's no difference between a $1000 purchase and a $1 purchase. The cost to them remains the same so the transaction fee should account for that cost. Let the customer figure out how to eliminate that cost without hiding it from them. Scaling by purchase amount subsidizes smaller purchases, but it allows merchants to take way more money than needed to process the transaction from larger transactions and most people don't even know that it's there and that they are paying significantly more money for an item than they need to. All these card rewards just waste people's time and in the end, the house always wins. This whole reward game is a direct result of this percentage merchant system and I'd rather not have it.