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After a laggy scroll led to me being flash-banged and closing the tab, I couldn't agree more.
Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
41–50 of 278 posts
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#42This is what product market fit looks like; everyone is trashing various pieces of Zenobia, but it's still getting upvoted because we all want the solution.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long have we been hearing that cryptocurrencies are going to save us from our existing payment systems?
I do not think most people are even slightly familiar with what transpired this year with regard to stablecoins. The biggest players that move money are going forward with it. This means Amazon, Walmart, and numerous other big players. They don't like paying credit card companies, and why should they. It's going to be a game changer.
If you want an Amazon stablecoin, fund an Amazon gift card with an ACH. (They already offer this, and they love it, as it bypasses the credit card companies. I often get offered a bonus for recharging this way.)
Because that's fundamentally what it's gonna wind up being.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#44I'm calling it-- 5 years and this will be vaporware. We live in a world where you have to 1) compete with VISA, Mastercard and 2) compete with Bitcoin Lightning Network.
I was an early adopter of the Bitcoin Lightning Network. If my memory serves correctly, I made one (real) payment with it. That was almost 10 years ago now, and I haven't even seen the chance to use it since.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#45When you start at the wrong premise, you typically end up in the wrong place. The premise is that credit cards (visa / Mastercard) is broken. When actually it works really well. For starters it works everywhere. Online. IRL. In my home country, in foreign lands. Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards. Merchants might pay 3%, (and ultimately yes, th…
> Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards. Sellers increase the price by the fee amount, savvy consumers with rewards cards can get back around 80% of that price increase, and regular non-credit-card-with-rewards holding consumers just subsidize the whole thing by paying the extra. It's a tax on people without rewards cards.
It’s worse on business cards. I negotiated a bank contract for our corporate card program earlier this year and we get 3.5% cash back from purchases. It incentivizes us to pay every vendor invoice by card too as ACH / check actually cost us money.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#46This is what product market fit looks like; everyone is trashing various pieces of Zenobia, but it's still getting upvoted because we all want the solution.
A solution to what? Serious question, I don't have any issue with the current model. Or are you referring to recent events?
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cash handling isn't free! You have to pay someone's time to count + reconcile + deposit it, or If you're dealing at any volume, you'll pay an armored car service to collect it. There's inevitably "shrinkage", or else business processes (more time and more overhead) to avoid it. Cash is king for hiding transactions and avoiding taxes. If that's the situation then I won't say you don't deserve a cut, but for rules-foll…
> but for rules-following merchants taking cash isn't any cheaper than paying the credit card fees. That’s not true at all, particularly for large purchases. If I go to an electronics and check out with $5000 in electronics, there’s no way that handling cash incurs the same expense to the store as the 3% fee ($150). Maybe for nickel and dime purchases, but that’s rarely the case. Even a $50 dinner doesn’t cost the re…
You're not factoring in "I won't go somewhere that doesn't take a credit card".
A store that sells $5k electronics is gonna lose a lot of sales if they attempt to save that $150 by only taking cash.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how prevalent this is now, but a few years back I was seeing a lot of "cash price" advertised for stuff that was lower by whatever the merchant didn't have to pay in fees so sometimes cash may not be subsidizing the credit industry.
In a lot of cases there are regulatory or contractual barriers to doing that.
The card issuers used to prohibit it, not been the case in a while though. They used to prohibit having a minimum transaction amount or charging transaction fees to your customer too. It never stopped small merchants though
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost but not exactly, any rational merchant would estimate how much they pay monthly in credit card fees and find a way to add that back to their revenue. For most practical cases, the business is started already after the existence of credit cards, so when modeling revenue in your business plan this should already be baked in and the prices you come up with already cover it. So it doesn't mean they increase the pr…
the seller just charges whatever it get can get away with. 3% only has an impact when margins are closer to that percentage
Savvy/corporate sellers are typically concerned with margins so fees do play a role
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's ultimately in the price of goods, then it doesn't cost the consumer nothing, no matter how you spin it. It's just cleverly hidden. I think it's close to impossible to "fix" Visa without government intervention (e.g. limit fees to a fraction of a percent), but I'm still grateful to anyone who tries.
The incentive for merchants to accept cards for payment is that it'll increase number of sales. And it does. In principle this should even out over all sales.. but cards do make it easier for consumers do purchase stuff, and I'm absolutely sure that I personally spend money way easier with a card than without (not that I spend more than I make, mind). The total number of sales go up. I haven't used cash in my home co…
> A lot of shops, restaurants, and other establishments have stopped accepting cash, even if it's illegal to do so (legal tender etc).
No. This is a misunderstanding of legal tender.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
"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."
Legal tender only applies to debts. When you go to buy a t-shirt at Target or a burger at McDonalds, you don't owe a debt, and they aren't a creditor.