[computing]

Let's be 100% clear on this - nobody is forcing the merchants into accepting credit cards. In fact, many don't. They do fine as cash-only businesses.

The hard economic reality is that accepting credit cards increases your sales, presumably enough to make the interchange fees worth it.

At last, Afterpay, Affirm etc. charge 600 bps (6%) interchange for their 4 split payments offer. Again, no one forces merchants to accept these payment methods, but the ones that do clearly see the benefit to the top line resulting from higher conversions.