This argument never really holds water with me, why stop at card costs? Why not add on an additional fee for every other thing like, fuel surcharge on delivery costs, employee surcharges (I don't live in a place where tipping is expected), or even energy surcharges?

The cost of the product should be what's on the label. If that's not enough, raise the price.

I really do not want even more divergence between the price listed and what I actually pay.

Here in New Zealand retailers can (and do) add transaction fees for cards at the terminal. It's a smart thing, because it causes the processing costs of expensive payment types to be borne by the customer who is using the expensive payment method. It sends strong signals and allows the customer to decide whether to use the convenient-but-expensive method.

Unfortunately it has become a popular idea to ban the surcharging of these costs by retailers, so it's likely to be outlawed by next year, which is completely asinine. Now we'll be back to a situation where customers who use a cheap payment method will be subsidizing customers who use an expensive payment method.

For 1 Australia just spent ten years in that world before it was reverted because of the prevalence of card surcharges everywhere.

Regarding (1), are they not already able to offer discounts for cash or debit purchases?

> Merchants need to be allowed to add card processing fees on top of any transaction

They can* and they do.

*It is capped to the actual processing fee, the card network must be notified, and the fee must be disclosed upfront to the consumer. A couple of states like CT and MA disallow consumer fees.

On most planned larger purchases (like more than $1000), I've seen CC fees recently.

> Merchants should be allowed to pick and choose which cards they accept without penalty.

To be clear for readers, merchants can choose their accepted card networks -- Visa, Mastercard, Amex (or alternatives like PayPal).

Networks requires merchants to accept all of the card within that network (hence the name "network"). Visa has three tiers; Mastercard has four. Something like ~90% of CCs fall in the traditional rewards tier, so there's less card variation than you might think. Though higher tiers tend to spend disproportionately more.

This idea that we are going to work our way backwards into a competitive landscape is not going to work.

“Pick and choose which cards they accept without penalty” won’t do anything in a market where 3-4 card processors and 3-5 banks have a near-monopoly on transactions.

If I sell ice cream and decide I won’t accept Chase credit cards because the fees are too high I’ve just lost 1/4 of my customers or something crazy high like that.

Let’s quit trying to find weird workarounds to keep capitalist failures propped up and use regulatory teeth.

Cap transaction fees at something reasonable like 0.5% and the problem disappears overnight.

Yes, you’ll lose your rewards, and that’s a good thing. Rewards cards are a massive wealth transfer mechanism that shouldn’t be legal.

Gas stations near me already have a cash price and a card price per gallon