I would potentially even go further than that. I think governments should make their own (digital) card payment systems that work like cash. Ie they should be as anonymous as cash and would have to serve all customers. This would have drawbacks in cases of fraud, but it could then be used exactly like cash is, but with less inefficiency.

I would go even further and say that governments should get out of the business of issuing cash. Especially having a monopoly on issuing cash.

(For this proposal in eg the US, the Fed can still control the money supply. It's just that banks would print their own cash; exactly like they mint their own account balances that you can use to pay with already.)

Wouldn’t that just cause a massive amount of confusion over what was legal cash and what exchange rates are? One of the economic strengths of the US is its unified currency which has been poorly copied by the euro.

A provably anonymous and untraceable digital currency backed by a government would see instant adoption. Before anyone complains about catching baddies just remember that serious criminals will astutely avoid any traceable currency or will find ways to launder it, only law abiding citizens and bunglers will be caught up in a surveillance state. The corrupt and criminal will remain as free as ever.

> Wouldn’t that just cause a massive amount of confusion over what was legal cash and what exchange rates are?

In practice, this has never been a problem, when it was tried historically.

What typically happens is that the different vendors standardize on a common unit of account (eg Pound Sterling in Scotland or Canadian Dollars in Canada, both of which were defined as a particular amount of some precious metals).

Typically issuers will redeem not only their own notes, but also accept other vendors notes at par---as long as that vendor is known to be solvent.

(The US was an exception to the latter, owing to their widespread bans on banks having more than a single office.)

The situation was pretty similar to how bank accounts still work today: if you have a dollar in an account at bank A, bank B will typically accept a transfer at par.

If someone is trying to pay you, you only need to know whether your own bank accepts the notes in question (or respectively whether your own bank accepts a wire transfer from their bank).

> One of the economic strengths of the US is its unified currency which has been poorly copied by the euro.

That was also a global strength during the gold standard. Common acceptance at par is enough for this. It's not necessary for everyone to use the same brand of currency.

See eg https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/white-the-theory-of-free-b... and https://www.cato.org/blog/what-you-should-know-about-free-ba...

George Selgin's book 'Good Money' is especially interesting. It's about Britain during the Industrial Revolution when the Royal Mint refused to mint enough small coins for factory owners to pay their staff. So some factory owners made their own coins (redeemable in demand into Pound Sterling).

Municipalities should issue their own bank notes.

Maybe? Not sure they would be best suited for that? Just like we don't have municipalities produce their own smartphones.

However, as long as there's no government-enforced monopoly or subsidies involved, it's fine?

There was this pedophile in my neighborhood that received water, gas and heating from companies. People were upset because without water he wouldn't have been able to become a pedophile

/s

The difference is that you have one electric line to your house (often via infrastructure controlled bh the municipality), but you do have the option to hold credit cards from various providers. The issue is that antitrust isn't being enforced.

More often than not, antitrust laws are used by the side who can afford lawyers to inconvenience the competition.

A more straightforward approach would be to lower barriers to entry. Both for startups but also, and probably more importantly, for companies from other industries and other countries who want to branch out.

At one point, Walmart wanted to become a bank in the US. The existing banks lobbied hard against that and prevailed. Say what you want about Walmart, but that would have been a breath of fresh air for retail customers and much needed real competition.

And we should strive to minimize what companies need to be classified as utilities.

Eg these days it doesn't make much sense anymore to classify phone companies as utilities.

> In 2022, I think credit cards should be viewed as a utility, as well as the internet itself. It's very difficult to live without either in the US and a lot of the world.

It's also difficult to live without food, or without an apartment. That doesn't mean providers of either of these should be treated as utilities.

Btw, I never had a credit card in my life and don't intend to get one. It's perfectly possible to live without them. (But that's only a minor and pedantic quibble: I agree that it is hard to avoid the major payment processors like Visa and MasterCard. I just happen to use them via debit cards, not credit cards.)

I take phone company in this case includes ISPs and mobile providers. And I would say that those are the most important utilities in this age. Even more so than water and electricity.

They provide important services. Doesn't make them utilities.

The difference is that power companies aren't liable when their services are used to distribute child porn. This is the problem with cancel culture. Without any external pressure, there is no reason for Visa and Mastercard to care about regulating porn at all because that's creating an unnecessary cost center for the sole purpose of rejecting revenue sources. In these sort of cases, a group of busybodies, which can be anyone from politicians to keyboard warriors, want to cancel something, but are too uncreative and lazy create a set of standards and moderate the content themselves. Instead, they choose to pressure those in their reach to act, which in this case is Visa and Mastercard. This way, Visa and Mastercard receive all the backlash to the rules instead of themselves. Don't blame the companies for responding to market incentives. Blame the people who are creating them. This applies basically for all forms of internet censorship (e.g. Youtube).

It's not possible to regulate porn and sexual content because of Rights™. Things like moderation can't be enshrined in a constitution.

Of course it's allowed. Congress was able to pass the Communications Act.

That's part of the U.S. Code, not the Constitution. Big difference.

You can still be charged with crimes for violating it though. Doesn't seem like that big of a practical difference.

If “cancel culture” is even one-tenth as effective at influencing the credit card duopoly’s polices as you think, how is it that Donald Trump is still accepting credit card donations?

I'm referring to cancel culture as a tool, not an ideology.

Visa actually did temporary halt political donations, so they were definitely entertaining the idea. However, they aren't really threatened by activists because nobody is going to stop using their credit card because Visa processes donations to Trump. Internet companies are much more vulnerable to activists, who can bring enough bad negative attention to dissuade companies from advertising on a platform.

In Visa and MasterCard's case, it's likely regulators or politicians pressuring them.