[Nursie]

One of the big innovations of non-crypto payment methods over cash was the ability to reverse.

> To solution to coercing a “reversal” of a transaction is use the legal system.

Or, just maybe, we could have a system which doesn't need to involve the legal system every time, and protects consumers anyway.

Which we have.

[theli0nheart]

> Or, just maybe, we could have a system which doesn't need to involve the legal system every time, and protects consumers anyway.

You omitted the part where this solution requires a surcharge of ~3% on every single transaction we make with our credit cards.

In a civilized society, this is how transactions work:

You research the merchant and judge whether they are trustworthy. You decide they are, and purchase an item from them. If you have a problem with the item, you request a refund. They ask for the product back, and then they send you the refund.

Nothing in the above paragraph requires a credit card processor to enable a reversal of funds.

If they refuse to provide a refund, that is their choice, but relying upon a central god-like money authority to judge whether they made the "correct" one is bonkers. That's under jurisdiction of the law.

[Nursie]

That’s not an issue in my country where fees are limited.

In your civilised society I will never, ever use a new merchant or a small merchant. One vendor that promises easy refunds would be the only place I would ever shop. Small vendors and new vendors can go hang. Hell, it might just kill internet shopping all together.

In your civilised society, small business is f*cked.

In your civilised society a person who has been ripped off by a merchant who refuses to deal with them or just plain disappears, has to spend time and more money dragging them through the courts, if they can even find them.

Your ‘civilised’ society is carte blanche for unscrupulous merchants to rip people off, something which humanity has been dealing with since the dawn of history.

We have these systems in place for a reason, and it’s to stop uncivilised merchants from doing what they’ve been doing as long as merchants have existed.

You don’t have to take credit cards, by the way, but don’t expect my business if you don’t.

[theli0nheart]

> In your civilised society I will never, ever use a new merchant or a small merchant. One vendor that promises easy refunds would be the only place I would ever shop. Small vendors and new vendors can go hang. Hell, it might just kill internet shopping all together.

What if that merchant was your friend? Or someone you knew personally? What if the merchant was recommended by someone you trust, like how small business has worked for millenia?

Otherwise, yes, you're right, you shouldn't buy things from people you don't know and/or don't trust, even with the ability to request a chargeback. That should never change.

> We have these systems in place for a reason, and it’s to stop uncivilised merchants from doing what they’ve been doing as long as merchants have existed.

No, that's not at all why these systems are in place. They would never have come to be had the U.S. Congress not passed the Fair Credit Billing Act in 1974 [1], which essentially outlined the mechanics of chargebacks, amongst other billing "errors".

To boot, consumers aren't a blameless party here. Fraud has existed on both sides of transactions since trading was a thing.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Billing_Act

[Nursie]

> What if the merchant was recommended by someone you trust, like how small business has worked for millenia?

Well that’s rather the point, unscrupulous merchants have been a problem for millennia.

> Otherwise, yes, you're right, you shouldn't buy things from people you don't know and/or don't trust, even with the ability to request a chargeback

Goodbye internet shopping then, massive restraint of trade incoming.

Consumers are not blameless, but the power imbalance and the ability of merchants to take the money and run has echoed through time, it is disproportionate. The answer is not to kill trade by removing protections because that benefits neither party.

Your act may have been significant in the US, the UK had a consumer credit act in July of that same year which sets out the responsibilities of parties to a loan, which credit card providers are. However that is not the totality as such systems exist beyond credit arrangements and they exist explicitly for consumer protection from unscrupulous merchants.

(Edit - Tbh in your world I see a marketplace like Amazon emerging, that has clawback contracts with its sellers, and provides similar one-sided refund facilities to consumers as current cards. Little would practically change, except that there would be even less room for competition)