You can blame the evil competitor but the real problem is that credit cards are not the right tool for payments to strangers over the internet.
Every time I do a CC transaction I’m giving a stranger exactly the information they need to do an entirely different, arbitrarily large CC transaction in my name with any merchant. That’s bonkers.
I’ve recently seen more use of Apple Pay via websites. Assuming it works as Apple Pay usually does, this at least is technically more secure (though I don’t like giving Apple more power) since it’s basically an exchange of cryptographically secure/verifiable one time tokens.
PayPal is no one’s favorite but at least if you use that you’re not handing over your CC number. (And yet they seem to lock out tons of merchants, hmm)
Why are we still using credit cards? It’s not great as a consumer either - I have had my card locked for traveling within the same city and spending maybe $20 at a merchant I don’t usually visit. I had it locked because of a $5 web service monthly charge - and I had verified the same charge the two prior months.
Every time I do a CC transaction I’m giving a stranger exactly the information they need to do an entirely different, arbitrarily large CC transaction in my name with any merchant. That’s bonkers.
I’ve recently seen more use of Apple Pay via websites. Assuming it works as Apple Pay usually does, this at least is technically more secure (though I don’t like giving Apple more power) since it’s basically an exchange of cryptographically secure/verifiable one time tokens.
PayPal is no one’s favorite but at least if you use that you’re not handing over your CC number. (And yet they seem to lock out tons of merchants, hmm)
Why are we still using credit cards? It’s not great as a consumer either - I have had my card locked for traveling within the same city and spending maybe $20 at a merchant I don’t usually visit. I had it locked because of a $5 web service monthly charge - and I had verified the same charge the two prior months.