What those high fees really come from is the need to cover the cost of all those rewards programs that are so ubiquitous in some countries such as the USA. Those would probably disappear pretty quickly in the presence of a law allowing merchants to add any processing fees (perhaps above some nominal baseline cost) on to the bill. 1% cash back doesn't seem like nearly so great a deal when you have to reckon with the fact that what's really going on is that you pay 2% more, and then the issuing bank gives half of it back to you, along with a generous dose of smoke up the ass, and then pockets the other half.

This!! So much. The status quo amounts to price manipulation that harms the market and is utter B.S.

Item 8 from http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to...

There was a time from 2013 to 2017 that merchants were permitted by processing agreement to do it, but Visa and Mastercard convinced an appeals court to throw it out. A few places in my state still do surcharges, but it's pretty rare.

Can you point me to any cheaper solutions?

I like the idea of having the processing fees displayed prominently on the receipt though (like VAT). If people had to actually pay more to use Amex (rather than the merchant absorbing the blow, or distributing the costs across their other customers), then they might quickly go out of business (and rightly so).

Obviously. They need to pay 0.2%-0.3% to the issuer (ie. the bank that gives you your card), but VISA/MasterCard and the processor want their cut as well.

> Can you point me to any cheaper solutions?

At least in Germany there are quite some cheap POS solutions:

0.69% for Visa/MasterCard:

https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...

0.98% for Visa/MasterCard:

https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...

You've swapped cause and effect here. It's the other way around.

High fees lead to rewards programs.

(This was back when non-rewards cards were the regular variety, so I'm assuming things have changed since then.)

Bitcoin is piss poor cash, given the wild exchange rate swings and the ability for it to be stolen online. It literally has no property that I desire.

Agree, but I'm not promoting Bitcoin, I think it's poorly designed by someone who doesn't understand the properties of good money. Another crytpo with better properties will supersede it. It's the idea of crypto that's great, not the particular implementation of that idea called Bitcoin.

Once you know an trust a vendor, paying with cash will eventually be a few percent cheaper just as it often is as brick and mortar places sometimes when they offer cash discounts because they too don't like the fees the cards companies force on them.

It's not an either or scenario, it's a both scenario; you should have the option of cash or credit online, just like you do in the real world.

Maybe in the world of the wealthy.

Largeness is relative. The counter to your argument is that widespread use of existing payment methods means the market prefers them.

That's not a valid argument. The market always prefers what "is" until a critical mass understands benefits of a new technology. The existing credit system was not designed for today's world, is pull based, and is rife with fraud on both the merchant and the consumer side. Merchants absolutely despise credit cards, we can't wait for something better to be invented.

The market preferred horses when cars were first invented; it takes time for new technology to penetrate. Internet cash will be a thing, Bitcoin might not be the successful implementation of that thing, but that thing's time will come.

Credit card companies are despised by merchants.

It of course doesn’t mean that things will remain this way forever. Credit cards have risen to prominence within living memory, there’s no reason why this has to remain. But it also means that if you expect something to replace credit cards, it must overcome both consumer preference and comfort, as well as all the advantages that the incumbents have.

As an aside, we have internet money. They’re called credit cards and debit cards, and we all use them daily to purchase ludicrous amounts of goods and services online and offline. What I have yet to see is an actual explanation for how any proposed “internet money” is superior to my Visa without relying on any ideological claims.

It absolutely is not when you're discussing a new technology most consumers don't understand yet or have never used.

> unless if you’re going to allege fraud or assert that everyone is dumb.

False dichotomy, it's a new technology, most people simply haven't had the chance to use it yet and don't understand it yet.

> As an aside, we have internet money. They’re called credit cards and debit cards

Those aren't the money I'm referring to, those are 3rd party verified trust you'll get paid systems, money is cash, and doesn't require a 3rd party to be trusted to pay you.

> What I have yet to see is an actual explanation for how any proposed “internet money” is superior to my Visa without relying on any ideological claims.

It's pretty simple, the same reasons you might want to use cash in the real world rather than credit. When you pay for something with cash, you're not at risk of that vendor taking more than you give him, you don't have to trust him. When you give a vendor a credit card, you're always at risk of fraud, a debit card... you might lose all your cash and you can't dispute those charges, it's not a credit card. Both of those also require the 3rd party to profit, so they charge extra fees. Cash typically has no extra fees (internet cash will, but they should be way lower than cc fees).

Beyond that, you need to step outside yourself a bit and be aware of your privilege, much of the world doesn't have access to credit cards and debit cards or even banks. Internet cash is a way for them to join the online world. If you can't get past your first world privilege, you'll never understand.

There's no ideology here, I don't think Bitcoin is the right mix of features for a good Internet cash, but Internet cash will come.

But, that doesn't really solve the problem, it merely pushes things around a bit. It's insufficient to say "credit cards aren't universally loved", because that does not imply that Bitcoin is the correct choice anywhere. It's perfectly possible that the local alternatives to CCs in other nations would still be preferred to Bitcoin. If one wants to sell the idea that BTC is a better choice than X, one must produce compelling reasons why this is so, preferably without relying on ideological statements that don't have universal appeal; I'm sure the goldbugs love BTCs anti-inflation nature, but that argument only carries the day with a very small group of people.