Meanwhile, for a business, either of these refusing to work with you will likely kill the business on the spot.
The differences between Europe and US corporatism is petty narcissism of small differences.
Maybe major chains. There are vast numbers of small-holder rentals that happily take cash.
> Meanwhile, for a business, either of these refusing to work with you will likely kill the business on the spot.
It's 100% possible to do business in Europe purely with bank transfer. I've been at it for years and I never interact with either Visa or Mastercard.
Yes, there are transactions that occur in cash, bank transfer & such. Fail to present a Visa/MC when you rent a car in Dublin or Brussels and you will be in for a surprise. In Dublin, standard practice is to compromise by making you pay a 5X rate... insurance or whatnot. Maybe there is a no-card option somewhere in the city, but it certainly isn't most places.
Yes, you can be an electrician or consultant without accepting cards. No, it is not practically possible to run a store or most customer facing businesses. Even most electricians and consultants accept or at least use cards.
There's no meaningful difference between Europe and the US. This is a powerful and hard to avoid duopoly.
Here in NL Apple Pay works fine with a lot of banks -- and they're still just Maestro cards.
I'll go out on a limb and assume that the standard fee structure does not afford wallet manufacturers a per-transaction fee.
This is totally tangential, but I would actually argue that denying someone access to their credit is not that different. Credit is what money is. Our European attitudes towards debt and credit is intensely responsible for our two tier system. Credit for the rich. Debit for the poor. Policy debate about where and how the border between these two should be.