It's a 1-3% tax on the merchants. This effectively makes doing business more expensive. You would think that prices in the US would be 1-3% higher than elsewhere in the world, but the "buy first decide later" carefree spending attitude makes for quite a different consumption landscape.

Credit cards in the US offer all kinds of perks. My card covers my purchase for damages or theft/loss for 120 days. This reduces the friction in consumption.