I complain about this at the other end of the cash flow cycle all the time: having to pay to pay.

When a service, often my local municipality, charges a fee to pay a fee.

VISA is arguably the biggest mafia organization in the world... 3% of all retain sales worldwide? Why?

With the proliferation of 3rd party "payment processors", and the accompanying crimes commited, The Fed has instituted a central bank hosted instant payment system:

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....

But almost no one uses it. Why is that? Do people really want their money locked up in stripe or paypal?