> it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
> it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
And places like Steam take a lot of payment options. Most online services that wanted to have wide international appeal in the 90s and 2000s had to simply because credit cards were rare in many places, and a lot of those services still have a wide array of options
Steam added recently a rule 15th what you should not publish:
15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.
See discussion here for example: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/6019100814124...
Maybe they could come out with a client named "Steamy" where they post all the nudie games and take all forms of shady, underground, scandalous payment methods, like btc and doge.
The US also has Discover/Capital One and American Express and if you live in some of the nicer parts people still take checks.
Does that actually help? Because it would send a pretty strong message if the payment screen said, "sorry you can only buy this with amex/discover" (click here for why) but that doesn't seem to be how this plays out.
Because making these products for sale at all in the catalog will cause Visa/MC to pull out for other, "approved" offerings.
You need the government to cajole the market to create safe and free inter bank transfer programs. We're not going to do that in the USA -- no one's buddies would get their kickbacks!
Like FedNow that was launched in 2023? https://www.frbservices.org/news/fed360/issues/071625/fednow... https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/fednow-2025
Not even close the service offered by, as an example, Pix in Brazil.
Granted, but Pix didn't have to compete against entrenched political interests.
I expect the meta-plot with FedNow is to commoditize the backend network, then allow private companies to compete on top of it (e.g. Zelle on FedNow), then after adoption as the backbone, finally roll out P2P and P2B type support that finally kills off Visa / Mastercard / Amex (as processing networks).
Not sure why you were downvoted. Pix is a fantastic example of how much more efficient p2p payments can be, without relying on the Visa-Mastercard duopoly.
Of course Pix had the backing of the government, so it had a huge initial boost, and didn't have to compete with entrenched players for market share.
Still, the fact is that it's universal, fast, efficient, lower cost for merchants, and less prone to censoring. What's not to like?
In a way it's more convenient than making congress pass laws to define payment providers as common carriers. With Pix, payment companies are free to chose their policies, but now citizens have options. Unfortunately that's not the reality in the US.
> You need the government to cajole the market to create safe and free inter bank transfer programs
We've had that in EU/eurozone for years, SEPA.
That's great to hear, but this is a US-centric complaint discussing US-centric companies.
It is not really US-centric. VISA and Mastercard actions resulted in delisting content in all the markets globally. Steam and Itch.io pulled games from all regions, Manga Library Z was hit in Japan, Patreon and Stripe are pressured globally. Suggesting to boycott VISA and Mastercard if you have an alternative is valid.
In principle, a service like this could be offered in the US as well, without any credit card companies acting as middle men: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow