Hacker News Reader

Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

> This is way too reductive. In the US, credit cards are complicated. For instance, I get about 2.5% of every purchase back, either in cash or kind. Yes, the merchant pays 4%, and VISA/matercard take a bit, and my issuing bank takes a bit, but calling that "extracting rents" feels like pure rhetoric.

You just described "extracting rents".

For people like me who treat a credit card as a debit card, I see no reason for vendors to pay that "tax" if there are almost free alternatives. I'm ok losing the cashback which you and I are paying for anyway.

View on HN

>For people like me who treat a credit card as a debit card

What do you mean here? Do you mean you overpay your credit card so there is always a negative balance?

Or, do you mean you treat your credit card like a charge card, and pay it off every month?

The latter.

As in, I don't actually need credit that lasts longer than a month.

Almost no retailers offer a discount for using cash or a debit card. You're paying the retailer either way. Whether they pay a transaction fee or pocket it isn't much of a difference to you.

Isn't that the point of the lawsuit - that because they have a monopoly there's a floor on the price that consumers see?

Retailers compete with each other. In the long run, credit card fees will lead to higher prices, and (basically non-existent) FedNow fees to lower prices.

I don’t disagree, but I also don’t trust that retailers will pass on the savings. Many higher priced items sell based on MSRP anyway.

Retailers don't "pass on the savings". One retailer will lower the price if they don't have to pay as high a Visa fee - to attract more customers. Other retailers will then follow suit.

Free shipping wasn't much of a thing until one retailer decided to make it one :-)

Or they will increase prices later than they would have. Which I think is most realistic scenario that will happen if cap is set. Prices don't go down, but they will go up slightly less over next few years.

That's changing in my corner of the US (suburbs of a large city). Most of the local businesses I've gone to in the past couple of months are adding a 3% surcharge if you pay with a credit card. Haven't seen a larger company do this, but restaurants, coffee shops, and some other local stores are doing this now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com