What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks • Hacker News Board

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#311

Post by boomlinde » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

Bratmon wrote: post #145

mopsi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You resolve it the same way you handle in-store cash purchases of products that turn out to be faulty. There is no reason why fraud and contract violation must be handled by unelected and unaccountable payment processor, when the government has already set up a consumer protection system for disputes related to cash payments. The payment processor is best left as a dumb pipe that does what parties and (in case of dis…

So, wait. Are you saying each transaction has to be individually approved by the account holder? Because that would break the subscription-based billing model for a lot of businesses.

Here, this is standardized, and if a local subscription service provider wants to pull money from my account I explicitly grant them permission to do that, which I can revoke at a later point.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#312

Post by porridgeraisin » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:04 AM UTC

supertrope wrote: post #114

zahlman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just seeing what looks like an attempt to sell me a PDF. What actually is the source of such costs? The cashier still has to be paid even if the customer is using a card. Presumably there isn't anywhere near that much theft from registers, or people messing up giving change?

Employee theft. Store manager theft. Robberies. Counterfeits. The extra time spent at each cash transaction and re-counting at the end of the day. Going to the bank, or paying an armored car service. Banks charge merchants a percentage of each cash deposit. Buying safes and pointing cameras down at each register.

This. My extended familys shop really benefitted from moving away from cash. Now the only source of cash is people who are paying from their black money stashes.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#313

Post by porridgeraisin » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #44

I play the credit card "game" because I hate feeling like I'm leaving money on the table, but I really wish I didn't have to. Some degrees of fees make sense, to run the network, and handle fraud, but it's ridiculous that people have this sense that shopping should somehow fund your vacation. Where I am it's increasingly common to see credit card fees when checking out. I get it, because merchants are being charged 3…

In india we use UPI. But people still use cards enough to be in decent enough terms with them for when you want to make a risky purchase and chargeback. In a sense, it's simply insurance. You pay extra 2% everywhere so you can dispute a txn at any point later.

Personally I make very few risky + expensive purchases, so my CC usage is non existent. I am comfortable enough to not really care if a random shady hobby electronics website fleeces me 500rs.

Another use is that sometimes you get CC offers on Amazon: "use $BANK $TIER CC to get extra 7k off" which are useful enough to justify paying extra everywhere else if you do your big shopping though Amazon festival deals. E.g you can get a 55k iphone for 45k.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#314

Post by pocksuppet » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:27 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #244

adrian_b wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there was a recent HN thread that linked to an article which argued that the credit card system of USA has the purpose of taking money from the poor and giving them to the rich, and the estimated amount of the money transferred in this way was huge. The EU limits for card fees prevent this in Europe, which is very good.

> has the purpose of taking money from the poor and giving them to the rich Are you saying it is intentional ? Is it not more simply explained as simple greed by two companies colluding to keep competitors out of their market?

But simple corporate greed is the same thing as taking money fro the poor and giving it to the rich?