[lug] Credit - was: [Letting folks pay from the web.]

[Davide Del Vento]

I'll try to keep it short, this time, and probably don't reply anymore
to this thread, before somebody kicks me out of the group for too many
OT (feel free to write, though, I'll continue reading).

>>> Yeah, because what we need is more Government regulation.
>> Now, even as an advocate of small government, you'll agree that lack
> You might be surprised, I'm NOT a fan of small government.
I'm not surprised about what you wrote, but I think that it would be
better to chat about this topic in person at the cafe. Do you ever go
to the hacking society? I go, but not very often (and I won't go this
week).

> What I don't like paying for is government laws designed
> to replace common sense.
Depends on the possible effects of such a lack of law. Would you
remove (or being against to add) any regulation on food safety,
because it's clearly common sense that nobody should sell food
contaminated from bacteria or other sources? I hope not!

>> Now, back to the reward cards, what's wrong with them might be clear
>> if you re-read Landon's post: thirds parts are forced to accept them
>> and pay for them.
>
> This is the crux of where we disagree.  I have seen a number of businesses who
> refuse to accept AMEX, or even all credit cards.

If it's about different brands, that's ok with me. What's not ok is
the merchant forced to accept both the reward and non-reward version
from the same CC company, say VISA. The difference might be small as
the other messages mentioned, but to me it's still a theft the CC
companies perpetrate against merchants.
Let's go back to my example of Borders forcing the publisher to pay
for the book the bookstore is giving away at a loss: the publisher
would have no control, and probably cannot easily make that money for
additional sales of other books. The Bookstore have control, and might
make money from sales of other books, coffee, teddy bears and
keychains.
If a business (CC company) wants to sell something "at loss" (=give
you rewards) because it thinks it's a good strategy, that's fine until
they use their own money and don't force third parts to pay for their
strategy. So they either have to let merchants refuse "reward VISA"
while accepting "regular VISA", or give merchants the same price for
all the versions of the same brand of plastic, or give merchants the
freedom to charge customers the differently. The fact that the
difference is small (if Jonathan and Maxwell are correct) doesn't make
it a right thing to do.

About to tipping, even after years of living in Colorado, I still have
questions. How would you tip a fair (not excellent) restaurant server
in which the food bill is about $30? I'm often in such a range, and I
have mixed feelings on how to tip. The $6 doesn't feel enough, but
it's already 20%, and tipping more than 20% for not outstanding
service doesn't feel good either. What would you do? What about
servers that just put the meal in the tray which you then bring to the
table yourself? How would you tip the server of a coffee shop (not
bringing the stuff at your table either) for a beverage in the 1-3$
range? Wouldn't be 20% offensive, and more, well, too much for what
they're actually doing?

Thanks,
;Dav