“Fighting junk fees is ‘woke’: Visa and Mastercard want you to pay credit card swipe fees to own the libs.”
A dark money campaign is claiming that legislation to rein in credit card junk fees is bad because it’s “woke," and compares reining in credit card fees to Communism.
The campaign is “literally that stupid,” says Cory Doctorow, who notes that Mastercard and Visa skim 3-5% of every of “every single retail transaction in the entire fucking economy.”
Not quite true but close—according to statista.com, cash accounted for just 12% of retail transactions in the US in 2022. Nearly other transaction is either a straight-up credit card or some variation like a debit card, ewallet, or a prepaid card.
Nowadays, the only thing I pay for with cash is my monthly haircut. Until this year, I also paid cash for pizza, but the pizza place we order from finally went to app delivery. Every other retail transaction I do goes through Visa.