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Comment by ketzu | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why this is interesting to people on HN.

* Is it Schadenfreude?

* To highlight what EU regulations entail, here a limit on internal fees?

* Is it the reliance on large financial provider networks and an insight in their fees?

I am kind of curious, maybe because I feel that Schadenfreude posts (which was the main reaction when I saw it on reddit) are not exactly the content I expect on HN, but it is not my place to decide that.

edit: restructure comment in an attempt to highlight that this is not just "You shouldn't feel Schadenfreude".

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There's a lot to take from this development besides Schadenfreude, as I see it living far from Europe.

UK founders for one need to be made aware of this since it likely impacts their business directly. But also, from an economic perspective I find it very important as it highlights that MasterCard is in such a controlling position that they can price hike like this (and possibly more) as soon as they're able to, possibly indicating a lack of competition in the space. It's an interesting example of how consumer-helping rulesets are needed since clearly MC was doing fine before this hike.

It seems to be interesting to companies selling goods online in the EU to customers in the UK, so not neccessarily applicable to UK founders yet or I might have misunderstood the intro line:

> fees it charges EU merchants when UK cardholders buy goods and services from them online

But I get the idea, it's interesting to founders in the EU that want to sell to UK for a relevant part of their business.

If I got it correct, master card is basically returning to the fee set that is valid outside of the EU, aren't they? (1.5% compared to 0.3%) which was based on a regulation from 2015 (and there are other payment options that are even cheaper in that regard.)

I do strongly belief that it's a sector that needs regulations like this, but I also feel that this lesson has been available for awhile and is ignored on purpose (e.g., on philosophical reasons such that regulation should be avoided for ineffectiveness reasons)

> I wonder why this is interesting to people on HN.

Visa and Mastercard's defacto monopoly is a huge issue for many startups, and therefore this is directly relevant.

I think a head of steam is beginning to build that V/MC is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue as is.

Thanks for the response. I do see the applicability and their dominant market position. In what way is it a huge issue for many startups?

Personally I see issues for consumers on the one hand and companies that provide goods or services that are deemed "not acceptable" by the duopoly. So I'm interested in the issues many startups have.

Regarding the article, as far as I found out by googling a bit, they basically rais the fees to their non-internal-EU fees. (But that might not actually be the case.) So it feels less news worthy to me.

Well, a large part of Hacker News userbase is from EU and UK, and buying from merchants located in other countries is quite usual. This will likely affect enough people in the site to be considered relevant.

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