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Comment by hirako2000 | Hacker News Reader

hirako2000·

You mean that the 2% something visa/Mastercard demand, is far more digestible by merchants when it doesn't represent the majority of their revenue?

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If previously 3 merchants had visa / Mastercard out of 10 who only accepted cash or cheques, then with UPI all 10 now accept UPI but 7 or 8 accept a universal POS which allows more type of payments. If previously 10% payments were via cards that costed them 2%, then now if sales are 2-3x because of UPI and online payments, letting go of that 2% for even 20% share of cards is fine because they captured a larger market with more sales. Not so long ago, India was a cash dominant economy so UPI actually opened that up. UPI actually helped Visa and Mastercard. Credit card spending has gone up a lot because of digitalization.

If in EU a local payment system captures the cash market, then the habit of using digital payments will actually also help Visa and Mastercard make more sale.

I currently don't have a credit card, but when I do, I find paying by a Visa/MasterCard much more preferable than UPI, simply because it's easier by tapping.

>simply because it's easier by tapping

i was under the impression UPI is just the underlying protocol, but an interface can be built on top be it tapping/QR/others? is that not the case?

I don’t see why there can’t be tap to pay via UPI. There is no holding back when it comes to technology. But it’s not implemented yet. We still have high corruption. Maybe they don’t want to make digital payments too easy that people forget cash. Just enough to win elections.

The same argument can be made that advertising boosts sales.

That doordash makes local eateries more prosperous.

It would elevate the debate if we acknowledge the dark patterns these business came up with to extract rents from the economy. That a category actor greatly benefits that's the outcome of any disrupting tech.

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