Hacker News Reader

Comment by ssl232 | Hacker News Reader

> But how do you break up such a duopoly?

Start buying things with cash again.

I'd be willing if most of the things hit weren't purely software services. It's a bit sad that Cryptocurrency has been the most common alternate payment for that and it's not in a good positions either

Ignoring the convenience aspect one problem with this is that you are now paying an ~2% "tax" as most stores include credit card fees in their prices. If you use a credit card you get ~2% back in "rewards" but if you don't you are still paying the same prices (in most businesses).

It's a pretty clever scheme by the card companies where the have raised the price for people not using their services.

This whole rewards thing we don't really have in Europe. At all.

Yep, because we're not getting scammed on transactions fees (capped by the ECB to 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit card transactions). I have an Amex card that has some cashback, but it's not a lot.

Yes! Let's ignore the fact that more and more companies do not take money at all. Problem solved.

More and more places are banning cashless companies. Delaware, NJ, Pittsburgh, NYC, San Francisco. Likely more to come.

Then you vote with your wallet and boycott those companies.

In Switzerland there is not a single shop I could name that only takes credit cards. Nether offline nor online.

I can name you at least 50 shops that dont take credit card but at least 2 different payment methods.

So when I need to buy software, should I send cash by post or drive 500 miles and pay in person?

I wonder if we could convince companies to put software on some sort of portable physical medium that could be sold in brick and mortar stores?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com