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A comment on Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic. Parent comment

Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by wlesieutre on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:02PM (#17657648)
Do you though? Except for gas, everything I buy costs the same whether I pay cash or credit. If a store started accepting bitcoins, I doubt they're going to recalculate the price to be lower than the cash price because you don't have a credit card transaction fee.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by darawk on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:07PM (#17657691)
We collectively pay, as a society. Credit card fees are a tax on commerce.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by nradov on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:57PM (#17658053)
Cash transactions aren't free either. The merchant has to pay for security, transport, and typically suffers some "leakage". Depending on the type of business and location those can end up being even more expensive than payment card fees.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by darawk on Thursday August 02, 2018 @02:12PM (#17673925)
Yep, absolutely true. No free lunch.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by pbreit on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:15PM (#17657751)
Except that the bulk of the fees to the merchant are paid back out to cardholders in the form of rewards and cashback. So it's closer to a wash.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by magnetic on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @11:34AM (#17663446)
Someone seems to have computed the cash vs CC money flow: https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss...

"On average, each cash-using household pays $149 to card-using households and each card-using household receives $1,133 from cash users every year."

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by darawk on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:31PM (#17657869)
Visa still managed to make $15 billion in gross profit last year. Seems pretty significant to me.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by pbreit on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:49PM (#17658712)
On $7.4 trillion in volume. So about 0.2%.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by darawk on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:01AM (#17660061)
I'd call that a lot.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by gray_-_wolf on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:08PM (#17657698)
You do. The store just gets higher margin on cash-paying customers.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by magnetic on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @11:24PM (#17659409)
He is the consumer, so he doesn't, because as you pointed out, it's the store that is on the hook for CC "transaction fees", not the consumer.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by PretzelPirate on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @11:45PM (#17659480)
Many small businesses raise their prices to offset credit card processing fees. Because of that, the consumer is paying the fee regardless of whether they pay in cash or with a card.
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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by magnetic on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @11:34AM (#17663454)
Apparently not: https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss...

"Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or "cash" ) users because merchants generally do not set differential prices for card users to recoup the costs of fees and rewards. On average, each cash-using household pays $149 to card-using households and each card-using household receives $1,133 from cash users every year."

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by PretzelPirate on Wednesday August 08, 2018 @04:54PM (#17719379)
This is interesting.

I was going off of the information I've received from small business owners in the Seattle area who I've formed personal relationships with, and who have told me how they increased their prices specifically to offset the cost of credit card fees.

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