"The 2.5% processing fees more than cover their losses."

Are you implying this is the only real cost for payment processors?

MasterCard and Visa both employ an internetwork that links banks (issuers) and merchants (acquirers) so that data is exchanged and payments are processed.

Issuers maintain the data necessary to identify their account holders, keep records, pay out the transactions presented by acquirers, and arrange to be paid for the transactions they facilitate. The float between payment to acquirers and receiving payment from their account holders binds capital, which sometimes is actually borrowed from sources, at interest. Even if it is held as working capital, it is not earing interest elsewhere. Along with all this, issuers have a fiduciary responsibility to protect their account holders from fraud and misuse, as much as is practically possible. All this I mention not to excuse fees, just to point out the reasons. And all of this requires complex information systems, which must be sufficiently accurate to avoid penalties for failure, even from regulatory agencies that are predicated on nothing more than a desire to impose their judgement on the process.

Acquirers also have a responsibility to eliminate fraud as much as practical. They also have a responsibility to ensure their customers, merchants, receive payment for goods and services provided on the promise of payment, and within reasonable time frames. And since the agencies purporting to protect consumers from bad behavior demand reporting, acquirers maintain these records. Not to mention tax receipts, etc.

Payment processing is not cheap. It most certainly is not free. Is 2.5% fair? I dunno. But it is a competitive business, despite the outsider not discerning that, but competitive in two directions. First, under the hood, processors do compete on fees or services. Stripe used to charge a LOT more than others, for the convenience of an easy signup. Amex used to charge more for the convenience of lesser fraud and customer loyalty (It was factual, look it up, or ask CVS and Walgreens). MasterCard and Visa discounted fees to attract the business that other brands enjoyed. Now convenience is a feature that has value. Loyalty programs increase fees because, well, if you're getting 2% cashback on your card, that came from somewhere. The equation should be obvious, but go look that up also.

Whining about processing fees can be about the absolute value, but if you don't understand the process, you will not believe that fees are fair, ever. You're wrong.

As we consider the premise that ACH checking is 'free'...

Most banks charge business customers for cash deposits. That includes checks.

Which sort of challenges the concept that payment processing fees are somehow excessive, when these fees are levied even for aper.

ACH can be used entirely electronically, but there are fees. Inconvenient, because ACH has rules.

Many payment processors charge fees almost invisibly.

And business customers find that depositing cash is a unique nuisance, so they might very much like this.

Eliminating paper checking is the gateway drug to eliminating cash. And that is the stepping stone to eliminating personal privacy.

(Off-topic rant here, eliminate the 702 provision. Please.)

Yes, this.

The unbanked in the US suffer many insults and damages. Eliminating paper checks will add to that, forcing them to use some service to convert cash into a form acceptable to the banking industry,

As it is, unbanked often pay to cash the checks they get for payroll etc. They convert direct deposit debit cards into cash, often with a fee. And then they enjoy the scorn of others who wait impatiently as they pay in cash, wait for the cashier to miscount change, and further complain.

SO eliminating paper checks will slap the unbanked twice - their sources of funds will be forced into some method, and they will be denied even the paper checking some use to avoid electronics.

And we should enjoy the discussion on the topic of 'We should eliminate cash'. Right in with 'We should eliminate printed material'.

Eliminating paper checks is not so good an idea as it might appear at first glance. As it is, those paper checks are negotiated and virtually immediately converted to electronic image data. From there, it's conventional for today.

I'll leave the discussion of personal privacy, freedom, and the Surveillance State to others. But you have been prompted.

Most grocery stores in the US will happily print that check for your signature, Yup, that's not at all new.

Given this level of subterfuge, all I can say is, "Sloppy job, Mossad."

Almost as bad as the people who try to get their iPhone payment app running.

"Ukrainian authorities said the drone was Russian"

Ukraine has good reason to attack the site, gauge response, and then blame the Russians.

There is no way for the rest of the world to know, except perhaps some intelligence agencies, and they will NOT tell.

In this scenario, the truth cannot help any of the parties involved, until you recognize that nuclear pollution from this site affects the world, and then the whole world is involved. And it's time to stop this madness in Ukraine before it escalates in a direction we should not and cannot tolerate.

Get over the right and wrong. That's past.

and if you take offense to that you're entitled to destroy their property?

Well, it is New York City.

Funnily enough the one thing agentic AI of current generation is definitionally not good for is in fact tasks that are rare or unique in nature.

My point was that in an environment where random errors occur you may minimize the errors with reliable processes. But the unspoken caveat... If you have everything on one device, that becomes your point of failure. Partitioning a drive doesn't give you multiple points of physical failure. Logical points, perhaps...

I mean it is better than Japanese status quo by some measure.

Ever dive deep into your network, even at home? Seen Layer 1 errors? Why? It's just wire, wtf?

But it happens. Even if you're not twisting the cables to see what happens.

Wi-Fi of course is expected to have Layer 1 imperfections.

Generally speaking, once you've gotten the BSoD, you're not reading logs.

And. "often it is hardware behind Microsoft's blue screen of death."

It is not well appreciated that Windows is reliant on independent vendors, manufacturers, etc. for drivers in particular. This is at once the greatest advantage (Microsoft can 'welcome' any hardware manufacturer that will bother to write drivers) and greatest vulnerability (Microsoft has to either do a LOT of work to insulate Windows from bad drivers, or suffer the consequences).

Yes, there was a time when Windows waited for sound card drivers to close up shop before shutting down. And suffer errors when sound card drivers, for example, encountered an unexpected circumstance. That's mostly over. Mostly.

Notice that Linux is beset with driver issues more than ever, of course. Those lazy or incompetent manufacturers don't save their worst work for Windows ya know.

Good point. So here's a solution to make everyone happy: A precondition for the acquisition of Warner Brothers (by anybody) should be to place WBs current library in the public domain. Then the unions and everyone else will have plenty of work to do creating new content.

After all, isn't this what copyright is supposed to encourage? The creation of new works?

These will make excellent teaching devices for the kids learn, in short order, how to bypass said controls.

Kids will do what they can get away with.