The issue is Card payments and the networks they use. Doesn't matter if lightning settles transactions instantly if the customer wants to pay with Visa and Visa allows funds claw back for ~180 days.
Normally a stores merchant account is kept open, so if a transaction is charged back a month later (and the bank and visa aggree with the chargeback) the money can be recovered from future sales. If the stores merchant account is closed because of "reasons" the payment provider can either use the funds the store has yet to cash out from the the payment provider as "insurance" against chargebacks until the deadline passes (at which case its safe to cash out) or start invoicing the store you just told to GTFO as a merchant to try and get the money back and then go recovery paths which is much more a nightmare for payment providers.
I'm not saying I agree with the polices, just that I understand why they are in place, the payment providers are just covering their own asses at the end of the day.
My question is about "what if".
Would there be downsides?
If the upsides outweigh the downsides, LN could slowly find its way into retail. Maybe by starting with some special use cases where speed, low fees, privacy or immutability are especially important.
Customers with outstanding orders are often on the bottom of the list of creditors who get paid back when a company goes bust and even the companies themselves will often say in their final messages to customers to speak to their card company and issue a charge back for outstanding orders.
The vendor needs to factor in the costs induced by Stripe. That's 3% fee plus the danger of your account being frozen. How much is that? Maybe another 1%?
So if the "price" to use Stripe is 4%, the vendor could offer their customers the same products for 2% less if they pay via lightning - and share the savings with their customers.
Sounds like a good deal. I have bought something with my CC hundreds of times and never ever did a chargeback.
On top of it, as a customer, I find credit cards annoying and scary. To get one, I have to get it physically delivered to my snail mail box. And everytime I pull that thing out, someone could photograph or memorize the numbers on it and cause me trouble.
There's nothing more annoying than trying to pay for your meal via a payment method they don't accept -- a common one these days is cash, many restaurants just don't accept it around here anymore, with no signage. So, for businesses, it isn't just a matter "willing to pay for it" but also customer expectations and not having to pay for "employee downtime" (such as employees having to explain why they don't accept that payment method) and "lost inventory" (such as a table being held while someone travels somewhere to retrieve a different payment method).
> the vendor could offer their customers the same products for 2% less if they pay via lightning
They can do this already by switching to a different payment provider that isn't "turn-key via API." There are many payment providers that only cost a small percentage over the interchange rate which varies between 1.5% and 3%, IIRC, depending on the type of card. You have to deal with sending transactions via FTP and all kinds of shenanigans ... but this is why you pay Stripe a flat rate, right?
> and share the savings with their customers.
I LOL'd. That never happens. Ever. Also, 2% isn't going to make a noticeable difference to practically anyone.
> I have bought something with my CC hundreds of times and never ever did a chargeback.
And that one time you do, you'll be incredibly thankful to get the money back that was spent on a container of shoes in a country you've never been to. True story.
> everytime I pull that thing out, someone could photograph or memorize the numbers on it and cause me trouble.
You can use tap-to-pay in a reasonably advanced area. My card never comes out of my wallet. Ever. I just hold my wallet up to the sensor and it is done.
> I have to get it physically delivered to my snail mail box.
Same here in the UK, however the cards are not delievered "activated", so you have to verify account details to enable to the card so prevents against thieft of the card in the mail (as even if it was stolen from the mail and activated, you will quickly contact the card issuer to say "Hey, where my card?" at which point the issuer will cancel the card and cancel any trasactions made on the card)
> everytime I pull that thing out, someone could photograph or memorize the numbers on it and cause me trouble.
Same could happen with Debit cards too, however the card number alone is useless without the EMV chip for in store transactions here in the UK (Mastercard are even phasing out the magnetic stripe completely[0] - My accounts are set to refuse magnetic stripe transactions unless I enable them via the banks app) and online transactions offer lower fee's if you validate the 3 digits on the back of the card and the address of the card holder, so most online stores will have for all 3 pieces of info (card number, the CVV, and the card holders address) before accepting the transaction. Making it harder to commit the fraud.
My cards (which I recently had replaced as I misplaced my wallet, guess i'm not as responsible as I thought I was) all now have the card number on the back of the card (makes it hard to photograph the card number as the chip and number are onn opposite sides, so when you insert/tap the card into a reader the number is not facing you or anyone standing next to/behind you.
Most of my cards support Apple Pay (The exception is my PayPal Business card which doesn't whoever I don't carry that card with me anyway) So most of the time I'm not getting my cards out of my wallet when I'm purchasing items in store (Prob the reason I misplaced my wallet, Its prob in the house SOMEWHERE...). But granted Apple Pay/Google Pay are not as widely used as the plastic cards shipped from the card issuers are.
Replacing my cards was a piece of cake for me, granted I use more "modern banks" than the high street banks of old, so when I reported my cards as lost my bank issued me a temporary card to my phone so I could still do purchases while I waited for my new card to arrive (Not all banks do this, and the temp card had a max spend limit on it until my new card arrived).
And on top of that the credit card has greater consumer protections than debit cards anyway if something were to happen.
[0]: https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/magnetic-s...
EDIT: I forgot to say. Just because Credit cards have greater protections than Debit cards, that doesn't mean that debits cards have no protection at all.
Also, disputing charges is a whole separate protocol for lightning that hasn't yet been considered. Or more accurately, is railed against as 'code is law' and 'not your keys not your crypto'
So for all the fees you 'save,' lightning nets a significantly below 0.
[Edit] Upwork is big enough to make their own gateway - the idea that they haven't is negligent.
FedNow also replaces ACH debit origination and its Good Funds Period with a Request to Pay architecture that IMO is far safer and has fewer edge cases and lacks the hilarious infinite loop in ACH debit exception handling.
So, yeah, good question, sorry you're being downvoted.