Literally using it as a revenue generating opportunity and a way to raise fees. My friend who owns the store declined to participate as they weren't interested in raising their prices just to pay Visa more money. Had Visa come at it the other way, reducing fees due to likely less fraud it would have been a different story.

This is the crux of it. In the US, every change is an opportunity to raise margins. Vinyl to CD. Book to Kindle. It kills me when the dead tree version is less than the Kindle version, but it's the same thing at work as with C+P.

I don't see why they don't just provide credit cards with both options for a while until enough of the PoS hardware has been upgraded that they can get rid of the magnetic stripe. I guess cost plays a role, but I would assume that the decrease in fraud might offset that somewhat.

Readers wear out. As people buy new ones they were chip/pin ready. A lot of these terminals are rented as well, making it easier for providers to swap them.

What's the point of buying the POS systems when no-one can use it and there's no guarantee the cards will be rolled out?

It happened very rapidly here in Britain once the cards were out.