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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Your link is the worldwide view. Just the European one [1] shows that only 11 out of 38 countries have an adoption of CCs >50%, 16/38 are at >40%.

Additionally, just because we have credit cards doesn't mean we use them in daily life. SEPA based payments work out far better.

[1] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit...

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That's for credit cards, debit cards penetration is much higher, my guess from working in a big fintech previously is that around 85-90% of people with a bank account in the EU have at least a debit card.

However, debit cards are not credit cards or compatible with credit cards, so I'm not sure what the relevance of your point is.

Sure on paper they are different things and they both involve different parties but in practice both are accepted everywhere. I never had a credit card but I have been using debit cards for decades and only twice an actual credit card was required: for booking a hotel abroad and for renting a car abroad.

For physical payment, sure. Lots of websites still only accept Visa/Mastercard.

I've been online in various ways since 2000s sometime, and have never stumbled upon a website/service/shop that doesn't accept my debit cards (which are Visa and Mastercard).

Are European debit cards maybe somehow different than US ones, and the experience differs between the two?

Yes, European debit cards often don’t use Visa or Mastercard. That’s changing though.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Visa debit card. I have never seen a Visa/Mastercard debit card in my life. My debit card supports SEPA and Giropay. Which... many websites don't. (I remember when Steam got Giropay support one day, that was a pleasant surprise.)

> I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Visa debit card

Sure does! Just signed up with BBVA some months ago and got a Visa debit card from them called "Aqua". https://www.bbva.es/en/personas/productos/tarjetas/tarjeta-d...

It's less common in Germany but, for example, Deutsche Bank do offer a Visa debit card. Sparkasse offers Maestro and Mastercard debit cards, etc.

In 99% of the places I can use my credit card I can also use my debit card, online or offline (well, except in Germany with their EC cards and stuff) that's the relevance of my point...

They point is that they probably also accepted debit cards, not just credit cards.

The only places I've found that only accept credit cards are hotels.

> SEPA based payments work out far better.

For many things they do, but I'd never order from an new/semi-reputable company online via SEPA credit transfer, and for analogous reasons a company would never accept SEPA direct debit from unknown customers.

If you have a credit card but don't want to use it for an uncertain online pre-order of a new product, what do you use it for?

> If you have a credit card but don't want to use it for an uncertain online pre-order of a new product, what do you use it for?

I have credit and debit cards. Basically no point in using the credit card, so I only use it for emergencies when nothing else works, which has been exactly once in my life so far, and that was in Mexico. In Spain (home) / around Europe I've never had an issue with my debit card, so it's what I keep using everywhere.

Sure, debit cards offer essentially the same protections (a defined dispute process, limited fraud liability etc.) in most countries and schemes.

What I meant was: Why use SEPA credit transfer (or more generally any other payment method without a dispute process) if you don't trust the merchant?

Credit cards are a useful backstop to have if for some reason you don't have access to your main current account / have a large bill to pay and have money in savings. 99% of the time when I use my credit card, it's to rent a car in the USA.

Are you thinking credit cards vs. debit cards, or cards vs. bank transfers? I agree that the former are largely equivalent modulo liquidity concerns, but for the latter, cards and push-based bank account payments (at least in SEPA) have significantly different rights and liabilities.

>just because we have credit cards doesn't mean we use them

I concur, using credit cards is rather dangerous, especially online and in app forms for both buyer and seller alike [6].

>SEPA based payments work out far better

Indeed, but since recently (2018?) European banks couldn't confiscate your money on a whim, like the US credit card companies did for decades. Now European banks do too, just like PayPal [4].

Enshittfication was first coined by Cory Doctorrow [3] here [2] and it applies everywhere now [1].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64a...

[2] https://doctorow.medium.com/social-quitting-1ce85b67b456

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

[4] https://emerchantauthority.com/blog/what-to-do-if-your-paypa....

[5] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=freeze+bank

[6] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

> I concur, using credit cards is rather dangerous

Your link is about chargeback. I'm pretty much exclusively using credit cards for daily payment and I can't even remember the last time I got any problems. I never pay interest either.

I get that you don't like or trust credit card, and it isn't popular in Europe, but don't be generalizing. Even in Europe my credit cards work well, except for the unpopularity of Amex.

>I get that you don't like or trust credit card

I do not get why people insist on defending the credit card companies and their ungoing enshittification and changing rules and laws[1]. I would prefer you refuting my central argument[2].

Credit card laws and rules have many more problems than just chargebacks. For two decades online payment webpages stole credit card numbers and stole money from people. I could list many more documented cases.

Elsewhere someone argues that debit cards are not credit cards. I agree. Of course Starlink forms reject debit cards too.

[1] https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/when-company-declines-your...

[2] https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

> For two decades online payment webpages stole credit card numbers and stole money from people. I could list many more documented cases.

In this case, it's better than debit cards as you are not out of money until the bank reverts the fraudulent charge.

Now with 3DS this is way better, but I am way wearier of using my debit card number online (so I generate temporary cards) compared to credit - if they steal the card number, there is no problem.

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