[Zachery]

They are, but only kind of. Most places give you a MasterCard Debit or a Visa Debit. Its just linked directly to your bank account.

They (the banks) pass the security and processing to the CC systems instead of a unified debit network (that is still around).

When I got my first fancy visa debit i was told if i used it as a debit card, I'd get charged 25 cents, but if used it as credit there were no transaction fees. This was back in 2001-2 ?

I bank with a local(ish) bank that is growing, I have a free checking account and have for a very long time. They've also been really good to be about waiving fees, etc, though part of that is being on a legacy account older than I am. However other friends and family have reasonably similar experiences.

They're also still offering a free checking account: https://www.huntington.com/Personal/checking/asterisk-free-c...