It sounds like a success right from the get go. But I don’t understand the motivation of those early adopters. Don’t compare it to today’s impossibility of renting a car without a credit card, the growing hostility to cash in Western countries, and the normalcy of buying all your stuff online. None of that applies to 1950.
Remember that this was only for restaurants at the time. And this was a charge card that requires you to pay your bill in full every month, meaning that you could afford those restaurants. You could not spread your bill over a period of months or years.
> We went over all the good points of the idea: You don’t have to carry a lot of cash. And perhaps most importantly, you have a receipt for a tax write-off if you take out a potential customer or client.
You don’t need to crazy amounts of cash for dinner for one night. Besides, carrying cash was normal. In 1950, it was not unusual to buy a car with cash. You could always get a restaurant receipt even if you paid cash. None of the justifications in the article makes sense to me.
My theory is that those early adopters signed up because the card gave the illusion of status or eliteness. You show this magic card to the waiter, sign your name, and you walk out without paying any money. All the other use cases and benefits (and detriments) of credit cards came in later years.