If Apple removed the transaction cost entirely, then there wouldn't be much complaint.
That absolutely raises prices and effects consumers.
If Apple takes a 0% fee, or allows other competitors some way of charging 0%, that would obviously benefit consumers.
So in other words, it's not 0%. Apple takes a cut.
Instead, it should be 0%.
That's how consumers would benefit. If it were 0%.
> The fee is paid by card issuers
This is a point addressed by any introductory economics class in high school.
It's called tax incidence.
Often, a high school education is not enough.
If they figured that out, then why not set the price to 1 million dollars per transaction?
Zero percent of the costs aren't passed down according to you.
With the extra tax revenue from this magic money machine, we could solve the national debt problem overnight!
It's definitely not coming out of card issuers pockets, from their fat interchange fees, that they may be happy to pay due to reduced fraud and other costs. Nope, the free sky money thing is it.
That high school education is serving well.