Yes, but the purpose is not to 'escape' the infrastructure costs, but rather to 'optimize' them...by keeping them low. So, in a general sense, self-regulating f

Yes, but the purpose is not to 'escape' the infrastructure costs, but rather to 'optimize' them...by keeping them low. So, in a general sense, self-regulating features of an economy (eg, transparency) create a "remedy" for otherwise more expensive-to-monitor arrangements. By increasing the opporunity set of remedies, your system optimizes to a lower-cost-base. That is to say, a 'remediable' inefficiency is different than one which there is no better option. The idea is that credit cards are a net-postive addition vs cash, because they create benefits to the consumer. These benefits are also the reason why the merchants pay (rents) to the CC companies. The "lost business" would be greater than if they did not exist. But again, here you are seeing the level of CC payments is a function of value added and costs avoided. It is not the case that they are really a measurement of the governance costs of the network (ie, those are at once a subset--anti-fraud--and on the other mostly external and borne by others)