A big part of the reasons credit cards rose to such prominence is that the banking and payment rails are so incredibly stupidly designed. The check system and ACH which is the highest volume way that money is sent between people with different banks requires you to give out the secret key every time you make a payment. Plus it takes at least 1-2 days to clear which makes fraud more difficult to deal with.
Interestingly the credit card system also suffers from the first part, your number is printed right there on your card. But they’ve managed to find and/or strong arm ways to reduce fraud on their network, and as a consumer I’m not liable for paying it which is a huge benefit.
The author really lost me at the end though, I don’t see how regulation magically solves everything and they didn’t explain it at all. There is already a ton of regulation in the payment industry. And this comically flimsy underlying system could easily be improved by existing regulators, how about starting with small steps and seeing how that goes? Instead of advocating for throwing out the entire payment system all at once under the very flimsy assumption that the government will do it better.