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Comment by revelation | Hacker News Reader

Smart people wouldn't pay the equivalent of a 2% sales tax to a private corporation in exchange for gimmicks.

The best part is that they realized you can keep the people from finding out that they are being royally ripped off by giving every single 30 card toting person the special feeling that they are the one getting back more than they put in.

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Cash itself isn't cost-free for businesses. There's the extra time it takes to count change for customers, the mistakes cashiers make when counting change, there's the time it takes to count the register at the end of a shift, the cost of a safe to hold cash on-site, the risk of counterfeit bills (when I cashiered we'd check $50s and $100s but not $20s and lower since it would take too long), and the cost of transporting the cash to the bank (either in the cost of an armored car or the risk of getting robbed on the way to the bank (which happened at another location while I was cashiering, after that they switched to an armored car)).

Credit card processing fees in the EU are legally capped at <.3%

What you are talking about may be well be true but let's be very clear here that transaction fees above that number are ripoff for gimmicks, not the equivalent of what cash handling would cost.

For your logic to make sense businesses would have to charge 2% less for using cash. Very few do so.

If i recall correctly, this was more common but was lobbied against by the CC companies (and might not be allowed anymore in certain states?)

You recall wrong; cash discounts are fine

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