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Comment by rednb | Hacker News Reader

You are literally linking to a page published by Visa's Investors Relations Department.

The problem is that like all cartels, they hold progress back. Things could be even more efficient than the current state of affairs. For example we could have open standards with thousands of local players, much faster settlement times etc...

There are also aspects such as the fact that due to this concentration of power, the whole world is subject to US sanctions, such that a EU citizen sanctioned by the US is effectively cut off from civilization.

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I like how providing an incredibly efficient payment network is framed as holding progress back.

I'd frame it as making the standards for competition very high.

I don't see people getting super ideological about their inability to create monocrystaline turbine blades or 2nm semiconductors in their garages. Why payment networks? Because computers? The overall network is way more complicated than a specific technological system or clever open standards document.

These networks would be usurped if someone could actually come up with a better system. The economy insists upon it constantly.

I 100% agree that their business is operated extremely well and delivers lots of value.

I am just saying that in my opinion, society would be even better off if this industry wasn't controlled by a cartel and i pointed 2 examples of how.

One difference between this and turbines, is that payment networks are sitting at the heart of the economy of countless countries. Turbines have a very different risk profile, much more modest and localized.

Russia was for example cut off from high-tech maintenance contracts but has been able to deal with it by manufacturing their own replacement part + there are maintenance cycles and spare parts so any disruption in service is not immediate unlike payments.

“It works extremely well” doesn’t establish “its prices and restrictions are justified”. much better, less parasitic systems are possible, look at brazil and PIX. "These networks would be usurped if someone could actually come up with a better system" the problem is the network effects with payments is so strong that this is wrong. to explain it simply, Network effects and customer lock-in mean the best system doesn’t automatically win.

It should be said that being on a US sanctions list doesn't appear to carry the same weight it once did. A Japanese citizen was added to one this month and her bank was able to effectively ignore it, not sure about options where credit cards are concerned, but there are local alternatives which don't rely on US payment networks.

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