Is it right that all digital payment goes through the USA big tech companies?

[neorichieb1971]

With elections upon us soon I was pondering on what isn't fair and I had a list longer than my arm.

But one thing stood out as I recognized that all digital payments go through the USA. Even used goods.

Example -

Amazon marketplace - British to British transaction - Goes through Amazon, Amazon take a cut
Ebay - British to British transaction - Goes through ebay, ebay takes a cut

Mastercard and Visa are both USA entities, as is AMEX, I used to work for one of them in St Louis. I learned that only a few cents is collected by the transaction for the company, but thats x billions a day probably.

Then we have Google pay, Apple pay, Paypal. I get the impression if shirt buttons were a currency they would only be made in the USA.

This means that unless you do bank transers and cash withdrawals that the USA is milking everyone in the world of their business practices.



I regularly amuse myself with BRICS meanderings and the petro dollar collapse just the other week, but until now It never occurred to me that the USA has a monopoly on digital money transactions as well.

I remember as a kid we had ACCESS as a card, but I think one of the bigger USA companies bought it, scrapped it.

UK is a bit of a slave to the USA in anything but name as all its government data is stored in USA cloud platforms. I'd go as far as to say the USA has invented the post 2000 world we live in.

Does your country have a payment system which does not navigate through a USA entity on its path? If so what is it?

[GaijinPunch]

Use a technology not created and managed by the US to get around it. But that's also like saying "use a streaming service not US-based". Capitalism and trash TV are kind of our thing, so it makes sense. I'm more interested in why the US dominates those markets globally. I'd like to think that are crazy tech wages help. (Disclaimer, I work in tech). I don't know that for sure, but I do know that here in the US, if you want to break out and make a fuck ton of money, if you work your balls off and you stand a very good chance. (I have a liberal arts degree for example). Japan, on the flip side, is the polar opposite. Some of the worst tech wages in the G7, and simply not a competitor in software (and losing a lot of their hardware share for decades).

Back to the question at hand, I believe there are other payment systems gaining traction. Japan has PayPay which seems to be doing pretty well in Japan, despite Apple Pay, GPay, etc. being huge there as well.

[neorichieb1971]

You can only invent the internet once and the USA got a foothold on it to monetize every cent out of it since day 1. All the money is now in those entities. Those entities have created so much money, they have a monopoly on what they want to buy and the UK has no shortage of sellers that will take a few billion.

The UK is doomed because of its sell nature. So I'll talk about that as well. Doesn't matter if its Chocolate (Cadbury, now Kraft USA), AI (Deepmind, now Google), Premiership football teams (Tottenham, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal), Formula 1 racing (now USA owned). As soon as something gets really big and has a big presence in the world, the USA buys it. If they don't bite, the Arabs, Chinese, Bangladeshi, Europeans buy it instead. So from my standpoint its a 2 way problem. Some folk don't know this but Netflix runs on AWS (Amazon web services) which means Amazon milk netflix and have their own competing platform as well. I don't know how Apple and Disney do theirs.

UK trains - Japanese, Europeans
UK Energy - Europeans
UK Cars - Europeans, Japanese

The problem with the USA owning most of our British companies is that they milk it, so wages don't go up very fast at all or you get that culture of working your ass off doing 3 peoples jobs because they cut the head count at the very moment they took over. My wife works for Morrisons supermarket which is now USA owned and her pension benefits were cut by 1%, they want to stop night shifts completely because of the extra rate of pay doing those night shifts. My other friend works in IT in the local area, recently bought by a USA company, same thing there as well.

My company is moving their tech into AWS cloud platforms and Google. And the transition keeps moving into the USA more and more.

The only thing the USA imported from us was higher house prices.

I work in tech as well, we have to compete with offshore workers, 3rd parties taking bigger chunks of the business, AI, other automation and soon i'll bet robots as well. The UK has robot supermarket delivery systems running right now and have been for over 5 years. Straight to your door. Albeit, you cannot fit 6 trolley loads in it.

[orange808]

You live on an island and you "imported" high real estate prices?



Fuck. Seriously?

My brother worked for a company based out of Europe. They loved not having to pay Americans anything, deal with unions, or finance any health care. Shipping, customs, and tariffs can be an issue; for some, it's easier to just handle the final steps of manufacturing in the US. All you need is a physical building in country. In most cases, you can even demand a grant (handout) and tax exemption before you move in. The city and state pay the business to come here and "create jobs". No worries about pensions or health care national expenditures. We don't have an NHS. We don't pay pensions. No more of those silly taxes. No more workers saying they should get paid. No more paying for health care. That expense is completely discharged to the employees.

Read Capital in the Twenty First Century and you'll discover this all business as usual. Middle America has a saying for all of this: "It's tough all over".

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You can only invent the internet once and the USA got a foothold on it to monetize every cent out of it since day 1. All the money is now in those entities. Those entities have created so much money, they have a monopoly on what they want to buy and the UK has no shortage of sellers that will take a few billion.

The UK is doomed because of its sell nature. So I'll talk about that as well. Doesn't matter if its Chocolate (Cadbury, now Kraft USA), AI (Deepmind, now Google), Premiership football teams (Tottenham, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal), Formula 1 racing (now USA owned). As soon as something gets really big and has a big presence in the world, the USA buys it. If they don't bite, the Arabs, Chinese, Bangladeshi, Europeans buy it instead. So from my standpoint its a 2 way problem. Some folk don't know this but Netflix runs on AWS (Amazon web services) which means Amazon milk netflix and have their own competing platform as well. I don't know how Apple and Disney do theirs.

UK trains - Japanese, Europeans
UK Energy - Europeans
UK Cars - Europeans, Japanese

The problem with the USA owning most of our British companies is that they milk it, so wages don't go up very fast at all or you get that culture of working your ass off doing 3 peoples jobs because they cut the head count at the very moment they took over. My wife works for Morrisons supermarket which is now USA owned and her pension benefits were cut by 1%, they want to stop night shifts completely because of the extra rate of pay doing those night shifts. My other friend works in IT in the local area, recently bought by a USA company, same thing there as well.

My company is moving their tech into AWS cloud platforms and Google. And the transition keeps moving into the USA more and more.

The only thing the USA imported from us was higher house prices.

I work in tech as well, we have to compete with offshore workers, 3rd parties taking bigger chunks of the business, AI, other automation and soon i'll bet robots as well. The UK has robot supermarket delivery systems running right now and have been for over 5 years. Straight to your door. Albeit, you cannot fit 6 trolley loads in it.

That delivery robot, Starship, is another American based business that has it's delivery robots on the Google campus in the Silicon Valley of California. The company I work for had gotten five of those Starship robots back in 2020-2021 as a test trial program but it was scrapped -- interesting to see them up close and stop in front of you if you're "in their way/blocking their path". I'd give 'em a wide clear path/berth to travel past me -- they sure can move quite quickly indeed. The Starship delivery robot reminds me of the classic early-1980s Milton Bradley's Big Trak Tank toy that was programmable -- really cool and futuristic for it's time.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Air Master Burst]

Oh you're all totally fucked. Burgerland is gonna take you all down with us.

I don't know if there's any escape from capitalism at this point, but at least we'll all have cheap phones and Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

[GaijinPunch]

The problem with the USA owning most of our British companies is that they milk it, so wages don't go up very fast at all or you get that culture of working your ass off doing 3 peoples jobs because they cut the head count at the very moment they took over.

This is not a US problem. Well, not exactly like that. We have heartless corporations for sure, but US salaries are through the fucking roof compared to the rest of the world. However, we can get fired right then and there and have our lives upended and of course - the disaster of health care costs. Pick your poison. The whole thing about headcount getting cut and work going up is a thing, but I doubt it's unique to the US. It's a complex issue so hard to just throw numbers around. There are plenty of people here in miserable jobs and can't live above the poverty line.

I've always though the UK seemed somewhere sanely in the middle. In Japan (and I know places in Europe) you cannot fire anyone, so you wind up with a lot of worthless pieces of shit in extreme cases, and everyone's salary suffers because of it. I don't think this is fair in the least. My current cumpany actually changed their severance policy a few weeks before axing 20% of the company. Legal? Yes. Ethitcal though? Hmm.... we got bought by a private equity firm which are basically the scum of the Earth though.

Some folk don't know this but Netflix runs on AWS (Amazon web services) which means Amazon milk netflix and have their own competing platform as well. I don't know how Apple and Disney do theirs.

Everyone in tech knows this. But I fail to see the headline. There countless tech companies that run on a single cloud vendor. In fact someone like Netflix arguably can get a better rate due to the volume. They just happen to be one of the VERY few in the world that can afford to build their own CDN infrastructure (and has). It's a classic "build vs buy" argument. So while you say Amazon can "milk them", the alternative 99.9% of the time is lose a fuck ton of money building something that is a utility, not part of your core business.

If you were referring to Prime Video competing with Netflix while running on the same cloud architecture... yeah, that happens. I don't know why that's a problem though. Plenty of businesses have internal customers.

For the record, Disney acquired a company for their platform. Apple is somewhat notorious for trying to invent/build everything whether they need to or not (including cars, until recently), so w/o doing too much research I'd assume they built their own platform from the ground up.

I work in tech as well, we have to compete with offshore workers, 3rd parties taking bigger chunks of the business, AI, other automation and soon i'll bet robots as well.

We have all that cool shit as well.... maybe more. In San Francisco I see self driving cards daily.

Oh you're all totally fucked. Burgerland is gonna take you all down with us.

I don't know if there's any escape from capitalism at this point, but at least we'll all have cheap phones and Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

Well, while we're on that topic, I saw some Ketchup Cheetos in the UK not long ago. If there was ever a display of proof of needing ones responsibilities lowered, that was it. They should just ditch the Royal Familiy finally and become a US colony. That's even worse than those fucking ketchup potato chips our Canadian neighbors are smart enough to not ship over to us.

[neorichieb1971]

The problem with the USA owning most of our British companies is that they milk it, so wages don't go up very fast at all or you get that culture of working your ass off doing 3 peoples jobs because they cut the head count at the very moment they took over.

This is not a US problem. Well, not exactly like that. We have heartless corporations for sure, but US salaries are through the fucking roof compared to the rest of the world. However, we can get fired right then and there and have our lives upended and of course - the disaster of health care costs. Pick your poison. The whole thing about headcount getting cut and work going up is a thing, but I doubt it's unique to the US. It's a complex issue so hard to just throw numbers around. There are plenty of people here in miserable jobs and can't live above the poverty line.

Well the point is that privileges took a big downturn once the USA parent company saw opportunity to cut costs. Whether it be the companies pension contribution, reduction in staff or moving the total operation to another country in some cases. In the case of Cadbury Chocolate, the offer on the table to buy all the shares came with conditions, which after the sale were completely ignored. The whole operation was promised to stay in Birmingham England but quite a lot of it went to Hungary. Apparently the recipe changed as well, but I can't say either way because after that happened I refused to buy Cadbury chocolate.

It might not be a USA exclusive issue, but damn I wouldn't trust them at all. The problem is that nobody is going to turn down a few billion $$$$$$ especially if a big chunk is going to few people. If my totally British company got bought out by the USA entities I certainly would forsee a dramatic turn of events.


Anyway I saw the football tonight, I saw Alipay on the billboards. I'm sure Ali isn't USA

[GaijinPunch]

You are a number to any corporation. At the end of the day you have to look out for yourself. Some treat their subject better than others, but not by a hell of a lot. I've learned a while ago to always keep the interview skills warm, for exactly the scenario you're describing. The world is vicious!

[Air Master Burst]

That's even worse than those fucking ketchup potato chips our Canadian neighbors are smart enough to not ship over to us

Ketchup chips are kinda gross to me too but they will always get a pass for being one of the key ingredients in all-dressed.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm anti-ketchup. If there's no other condiment around and the fries are mediocre, I'll have a bit, but I don't dig it. I stick mustard on my fries.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The world is vicious!

Not saying you're wrong when it comes to companies, still there's some irony in your words since we all know what a helpful fella you are.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'm anti-ketchup. If there's no other condiment around and the fries are mediocre, I'll have a bit, but I don't dig it. I stick mustard on my fries.

In certain countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands (aka Holland to Americans), it's customary to dunk french fries in mayonnaise (rather than in ketchup/catsup as usual stateside).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[GaijinPunch]

The world is vicious!

Not saying you're wrong when it comes to companies, still there's some irony in your words since we all know what a helpful fella you are.

"Be the change you want to see in the world" as they say.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The world is vicious!

Not saying you're wrong when it comes to companies, still there's some irony in your words since we all know what a helpful fella you are.

"Be the change you want to see in the world" as they say.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

It's well-known that the Netflix streaming service (based out of Los Gatos, CA) has an annual operating budget of $17 billion for it's ongoing various series, original films and even anime as well (not to mention delving into mobile gaming with the purchase of a few game developers under their stable to cross-promote their popular series).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[spmbx]

I'm from europe, and while we do have local payment options i use visa wherever i can because it's just allround a better product for me as consumer.

[vol.2]

I just use whatever card I have that has the best cash back deal. It's nice to get a check every couple of month by just pumping all my expenses through a card.

I lurked on this one for awhile, but I didn't answer because it seems like a disingenuous question.

Is it right that all digital payment goes through the USA big tech companies?

No. It's not. It's all for shit. The world is locked in a state of extreme polarized economics. But I don't think it's useful to concentrate on the US as the villain, we have a significant number of people living below the poverty line, and many more that are without basic health insurance. More than that, I don't think framing it a nationalistic issue is productive. Simply implying that there should be an even distribution of wealth among all the world's nations flies in the face of the economic system that we have all unwittingly accepted. Capitalism encourages the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, and that will always run against "spreading the wealth." That this could ever be achieved is the great lie of capitalism and the root of the American Dream. British imperialism is not without blame in that venture, and the export of our various values to other parts of the world has helped cement us in this economic death rattle