>I always find it entertaining to hear people try to argue that what these companies do is soooooo difficult and that's why they're valuable. It's just multiple computers keeping a balance. It's not complicated.
Honestly its a few things.
No, the technical and financial implementation is quite complicated. Its not just a balance in a database.
Yes, they do maintain control through a vertically integrated business structure. But its very easy to justify due to risk management.
>No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect.
The moat is the difficulty. And they do protect it.
Theres a common type of customer in IT who thinks they can do everything themselves and the "finding out" phase of their shenanigans is often extremely costly, not just for themselves but for their customers.
The chief product of a good supplier is not just software or technical services, its the regimented and disciplined implementation of those services.
Some people will pay more for an IT provider who permits less because they lack the internal organizational discipline to do these things correctly for themselves.
As far as various governments are concerned, the payment card industry is largely self regulating. And that's because the apex card providers provide the balance of enforcement downstream to all the nitwits who would otherwise have to be stung by hundreds of security lapses before they would otherwise respond. The PCI SSC has created an environment where data security is more restrictive than most polity's would require, and its standards are applied worldwide. Often people get liability exemptions for meeting this standard, rather than the standard itself being enforced by legislation or regulation.
Governments honestly love this shit. Its like catnip.
And if you had 1 tiny look behind the curtains of a merchant credit card processor, you would see that they would abandon this level of compliance at the drop of a hat were they permitted. The glue that holds the whole thing together is the restricted access to global Visa and Mastercard payment processing.
If you think all this is trivial, demonstrate how trivial it is, and spin up your own cards, card payment platform, various interconnects and clearing houses. I think you would much more quickly assemble a working computer out of a kids sandpit. Shit I remember a bunch of crypto projects sought to replace Visa and Mastercard, the best we got was Crypto branded Visas and Mastercards.