On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Michael Torrie wrote: > Ever wonder why we all hate Microsoft so much for skimming money off the > top of every computer system on the market when we don't have such a > problem with VISA skimming off part of a percent of almost all > transactions world-wide.
Actually, I strongly disapprove of a very few credit card franchises becoming middlemen for a large percentage of financial transactions. (Though you vastly overstate it by saying "almost all" -- by some estimates between 50-75% of all trackable transactions are by check.) I use cash whenever possible, including in small amounts for mailorder. No fee to the middleman, no trail, no bounced checks or overdraft with a check card, no bill to pay at the end of the month, no interest charges, no shopping habits recorded, easy to hand over to individuals without a credit card terminal. Not as good as something backed by real valuables, but still, a lot better than credit cards for many situations. Having said all that, the fee the credit card companies charge is pretty reasonable if they're acutally adding value: facilitating faster ecommerce, constraining corporate spending to certain dollar limits or categories, or giving me a relatively low-interest loan on demand, without having to talk to a bank employee every time. Those are all worth something, but they're relatively rare occurrences and have nothing to do with my regular buying groceries, gas, etc. Johann ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
