Actually, that’s a fair point. Credit card merchant fees are a significant portion of transactions. VISA gets rich because they charge 1-10% on every single transaction. Holy crap.
My family churns our credit cards to get the absolute maximum rewards possible. Each year, out of probably $75k in purchases on credit cards, we receive about $3k in cash back. That’s about 5%. Sure, we’re thankful for being able to get some free nights in a hotel and such, but if we weren’t paying those fees in the first place, we’d save quite a bit more.
But of course, cost savings are not transferred to consumers these days. Retailers will still charge the same, they’ll just give VISA and the big banks less profits.