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

[Jeffrey Haemer]

> > I'm originally from Italy, and over there it's pretty common for most
> > businesses to not accept credit cards at all,
>

Well, this discussion's wandering far enough into the weed-strewn fields of
opinion, policy, and social-engineering that I'd normally have lost
interest, but I started the thread, so I keep reading it. :-)

On this item, I'll dip my toe back in because I know a related technical
trivium.  I've been told that a reason credit cards spread faster through
America than elsewhere was also a reason cell phone adoption was slower:
landlines everywhere else sucked.

When I was working in Romania, for example, it took six months to get a
phone installed.  "Our installer should be there sometime in August.  Try to
be home." :-)  The head guy for AT&T in Russia,whom I met there, told me
that in Russia it was a year.  (Why did AT&T have guys in Russia?  Beats
me.)  Plus, if you had a landline, in other countries, it sounded like
talking over tincans and string.  Calls were only twice as expensive, if you
were lucky, but it seemed like they were more than that because the average
person had less disposable income. I have many personal anecdotes.

Land lines in almost all the rest of the world are not just regulated by the
government, they're actually run by the government, just like the USPS used
to be, here.  They're called "PTTs" -- Postal Telephone and Telegraph
bureaus.

Here, when cell-phone providers started, folks said, "Why would I want a
cell phone?  My home phone's better and cheaper."  In Europe and Africa and
Asia, it was, "At last!  I can get a phone!"  Or more than one.  Adi Rotaru,
the head of the Romanian Unix Users Group (*Grupul* utilizatorilor romani de
*Unix -- yep, "GURU") *always carried at least two.

What's this have to do with credit cards?  Credit-card readers connected to
the banks by phone lines.  In Europe they cost too much and worked too
poorly.

The cards that were becoming popular there, instead (maybe still are, for
all I know -- Davide can probably tell us), were cards that had chips on
them with information about things like your account balance.  I think they
were called "smart cards," though that word's now used for lots of other
things.  The readers were a completely different technology, worked
standalone, and were able to talk directly to the chip in the card.  For all
I know, that's the technology that places like Macdonalds use now for their
gift cards.  Someone reading this will surely know.

And, before I forget and look ungrateful, thanks to everyone who offered
suggestions about how to use PayPal!

-- 
Click to Call Me Now! --
http://seejeffrun.blogspot.com/2009/09/call-me-now.html

Jeffrey Haemer <jeffrey.haemer at gmail.com>
720-837-8908 [cell],  @goyishekop [twitter]
http://www.youtube.com/user/goyishekop [vlog]
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