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Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

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Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#641

Post by exolymph »

dfxm12 wrote: post #567
apeace wrote: post #558

Living in New York City, I've noticed that there are a whole lot of businesses that are either cash-only or card-only. I always understood the cash-only ones. If you can get plenty of customers who are willing to pay in cash, why would you want to pay credit card fees? The card-only ones were harder for me to understand, until I realized that handling cash costs money, too. Somebody needs to count it all at least onc…

The other side of this is that card only businesses de facto discriminate (not in an illegal way, of course) against people who don't have/can't get cards. Not being able to buy a cup of coffee from one particular coffee shop might not seem like a big deal, but it sends a signal as to who is/isn't wanted in the shop. Further, if it becomes a trend and all coffee shops go card only, spreading to other business like gr…

I am pro-cash but the filtering effect of requiring people to pay a small amount of money to be in whatever establishment is a HUGE positive for the user experience. I live in the SF Bay Area; I do not want to hang out anywhere that allows homeless people inside, period. Is that callous? I dunno. I don't hate them or wish them ill, I simply don't want to be around them for obvious reasons not least being safety concerns (I am a 5'4" woman).

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#642

Post by deltree7 »

conjecTech wrote: post #565
apeace wrote: post #558

Living in New York City, I've noticed that there are a whole lot of businesses that are either cash-only or card-only. I always understood the cash-only ones. If you can get plenty of customers who are willing to pay in cash, why would you want to pay credit card fees? The card-only ones were harder for me to understand, until I realized that handling cash costs money, too. Somebody needs to count it all at least onc…

This is a false dichotomy. Other countries have debit systems that solve all of the problems you outline and charge 0.1%.

credit cards provides plenty of benefits to the customer which debit cards won't. Fraud protection, charge backs. This in turn, makes consumers use more credit cards stimulating the entire business economy

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#643

Post by throwaheyy »

jen729w wrote: post #346
_carbyau_ wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EFTPOS got kicked to the curb when paywave-with-no-pin started. And then the pandemic reinforced that idea for a lot of people. I don't know when I last used EFTPOS.

Aah so am I not actually using it? Like I said, no idea. Most consumers don't. There's a terminal, I wave my [phone|watch|card] at it, it beeps, I walk away. Happy days. In that case if it's a Visa card, is Visa the processing entity?

EFTPOS started in the 1980s as a full-electronic network when Visa/MC transactions still used a manual imprinter and paper slips with carbon copies. Visa/MC have also gone full electronic since then, so EFTPOS has kind of served its purpose.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#644

Post by leesalminen »

geph2021 wrote: post #589
leesalminen wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that is a meaningless amount for you surely isn’t meaningless for the person receiving it. To extrapolate the idea some, I’d be comfortable using an irreversible payment method for various B2B SaaS subscriptions. Those can reach perhaps more meaningful amounts to you. It seems that you’re rather dismissive of this conversation, so I’ll wish you a pleasant day/evening.

I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness. Not only is the irreversibility less important, but potentially some of the usability/security issues for users (hacked/stolen wallets etc...) become less important as well (assuming users keep only smallish balances in crypto wallets).

> I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness.

I've been testing out the Lightning Network (Layer 2 of BTC) recently and it seems that the future has arrived. I can accept micropayments in BTC over LN, which get immediately converted to dollars and deposited to a bank account in USD. All for ~$0.01 fee per transaction. Here's how:

1.) Open an account at https://strike.me. This app is very similar to CashApp, but supports getting paid on the Lightning Network. I believe CashApp is also working on this functionality.

2.) Set up your own self-hosted install of https://lnbits.com (or use cloud hosted version at https://voltage.cloud for ~$10 USD/mo).

3.) Connect LNBits to Strike. (Note: there is an open PR for this, if you want to test then check out the PR on Github)

4.) Set up a Point of Sale (or paywall, or event tickets, or tip jar, or line-item invoices, or anything else) on LNBits.

5.) Collect a payment in LNBits.

6.) That BTC is immediately forwarded to Strike, converted to USD and available for withdrawal to your bank account.

Following these steps you can collect micropayments in USD for next-to-nothing fees and have no exposure to the volatility of BTC.

Your potential customers can hold their balance in USD as well, if they don't want to hold any crypto. They just deposit some USD into their Strike account to pay these micropayments.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#645

Post by thewebcount »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #165
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, absolutely. It is totally embarrassing to watch my UK family or EU friends interact with their banking systems and compare it with the US. To be fair, things are improving a little bit. But we're still so very far behind the EU banking system. Instant, cost-free transfers between any two accounts, completed faster than you can lift your finger off your smartphone.

> Instant, cost-free transfers between any two accounts, completed faster than you can lift your finger off your smartphone. This is available to most people in the US via Zelle. I have been using it for nearly 10 years I think. https://www.zellepay.com/get-started Ideally, the federal government would have already made it a utility available to all, but for now the functionality is there for those who can get a bank…

There are limitations on who can use it, though. For example, I own some properties that I rent out. I would love for my renters the be able to simply send me their rent via Zelle, but Citibank doesn't allow it on business accounts (or at least I couldn't get them to turn it on for mine when I tried a couple years ago). They claimed it was only for personal accounts. I rarely need to send money to people I'm friends with. (And when we do, we use Apple Cash.) I also don't like having yet another company keeping track of whom I interact with.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#646

Post by Phrodo_00 »

codyb wrote: post #572
dfxm12 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of this is that card only businesses de facto discriminate (not in an illegal way, of course) against people who don't have/can't get cards. Not being able to buy a cup of coffee from one particular coffee shop might not seem like a big deal, but it sends a signal as to who is/isn't wanted in the shop. Further, if it becomes a trend and all coffee shops go card only, spreading to other business like gr…

I'm pretty sure card only is illegal in NYC for precisely this reason. I come across them occasionally and I think the pandemic made it a bit more common place but it's technically against the law here to not accept cash. https://abcnews.go.com/US/cashless-stores-restaurants-banned...

In my country, the state-owned bank (normal bank that happens to be owned by the state, not the central bank) came out with an automatic, free checking account so that everyone can use cards. It's not perfect because it has some less than ideal fees, but it helps getting over this problem.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#647

Post by nradov »

saghm wrote: post #639
nradov wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Under US federal law, if I owe you a $100 debt and I hand you $100 in cash paper money then I have settled the debt. You cannot then sue me, demanding to be paid via Visa or PayPal or whatever. But this applies to debts only , not purchases.

I think you're missing my point! I'm not saying that the law doesn't actually require this; I'm just saying that there's nothing in general saying that something printed on every bill has to be true. In this case, it happens to be, but saying that it's printed on the bill isn't what proves it.

Nonsense. What's printed on the bill absolutely proves it. What kind of fantasy world are you living in?

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#648

Post by plumeria »

selectodude wrote: post #606
wiederholen wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.

I know that. However you must accept cash to settle a debt. It's literally printed on every bill.

Why couldn't someone use a prepaid card instead of cash?

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#649

Post by NoPicklez »

deltree7 wrote: post #642
conjecTech wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. Other countries have debit systems that solve all of the problems you outline and charge 0.1%.

credit cards provides plenty of benefits to the customer which debit cards won't. Fraud protection, charge backs. This in turn, makes consumers use more credit cards stimulating the entire business economy

I get the same protection on my debit card as I do a credit card here in Australia. Fraud protection, chargebacks, tap to pay and chip in card.

In fact over here, Credit Cards incur more fees for the business than debit cards. In all my years of being alive, I've never understood the need for a Credit Card.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#650

Post by 988747 »

notsapiensatall wrote: post #418
pulisse wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The benefit of credit cards is no one can literally drain your bank account via fraudulent access to a payment card directly tied to your bank (i.e. debit card in US nomenclature This difference is a consequence of law, not payment technology. It's entirely possible for someone to make fraudulent charges on a card up to its limit (which would be the analogue of draining a bank account), but CC companies are require…

There is a functional difference in how credit/debit cards work, though. With credit cards, you get an invoice with fraudulent charges at the end of the month. You can choose not to pay those charges, citing fraud. The bank will clear the charges if they agree. With debit cards, the money is withdrawn directly from your account. You can report the unauthorized withdrawal, and the bank will reimburse you if they agree…

With credit cards the disputed charges will still decrease your credit limit, no? So the functional difference is much smaller than you think.
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