&gt; 3% is not price gouging. First, they spent decades building up their networks.<p>Except the fee goes to the issuer and not the network.<p>&gt; You are paying for indemnity. People forget about the power of purchase protection. I can pay with a card and feel safe I will not get screwed by a merchant. Merchants are scared of chargebacks, so they rarely screw the customer.<p>Then the cardholder should pay for this, certainly not the merchant.<p>&gt; Card payment is vastly superior to cash payment the fees are not out of line.<p>3% is out of line for incrementing an integer in one mainframe and decrementing it in an other mainframe with virtually not risk.