One of the most corrupting yet hidden forces in America today are the payment networks MC/Visa etc. due to their bribing and corruption of the government in order to prevent things like making payment processor fees separate/independent of the cost, i.e., similar to how taxes are added after the fact, not included in the price; and also preventing merchants from having two different prices, cash vs card.
I’m a bit surprised that HBR does not seem to even really have an accurate mental model if the matter, unless they’re making an editorial choice to speak in vernacular turns to relate it to the audience.
The problem is not really the cards, it even credit cards, it’s actually the payment processing networks that are the corrupting force.
If America has a legitimate government, there would have been a federal alternative payment processor that charges nothing as an accompaniment and based on the authority to mint the currency, which is what a payment processor today is, a digital currency mint.
To put it into perspective, when you purchase something by credit card, a merchant may have to l pay a little under 3% on a $100 purchase. When you purchase something cheaper let’s say $5, a merchant may pay 6.5%. And no, they don’t just say “awe shucks, I guess I’ll lose that money”, They increase the prices by some averaged amount.
Some may say that they can’t do that because competition, well, because there is no real competition and because the payment processor de facto monopoly/cartel has basically every single company in lockdown and you have no real alternatives, especially in places like Europe where they’ve foolishly and enthusiastically started forcing everyone into digital payment, all the merchants simply roll what is effectively a kind of organized crime/mob extortion into the prices of the goods and services the common person pays and never knows is paying.