Topic: Bitcoin Merchant Services - Should charge no Fees? - page 2. (Read 1794 times)

I know they need to make money to stay in business.

But this is a slippery slope.  And when I'm already seeing merchants like BitPay.com charging 1% for every transaction, I can't help but wonder what that transaction fee will look like in 10 years.

Visa and Mastercard rape me monthly with a bill of nearly $3,900 just in transaction processing fees with my online store.

BitPay already charges 0.99%

Sure its less, but Bitcoin hasn't even come close to hitting the mainstream yet.  

Isn't the entire point of Bitcoin to avoid transaction fees, especially for online merchants?  I think its biggest draw towards mainstream commerce is the "lack of transaction fees".  Which has now conveniently turned into "lower transaction fees"  (yawn).  

Sure its nice to cut the fee down by 66%, but in my naive view, a 66% discount isn't what Bitcoin is about.  Bitcoin is about a 100% discount.  Free transaction of money, no?

Yes, I know Coinbase, Gox, etc all charge transaction fees.  I know its necessary.  Maybe my question should be phrased like this:  

How can the entire purpose of Bitcoin (the free exchange of money) be retained when it costs money to do transactions?

Merchants don't keep their rates the same.  They will increase.  And if BitPay is already at 1%, I foresee them being at 3% in 10 years easily...

-Burger-