Only a government has sufficient power to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly as a payment network, and even then only within its borders. See what India did with UPI to mandate a single interface for bank-to-bank transfers and a single app for payments. The EU also kind of muddled its way through with SEPA and there are country-specific transfer methods like Interac in Canada.
I’ve wondered why a network the size of Stripe has not issued its own currency to bypass the Visa/Mastercard middleman. Maybe political pressure? If SaaS vendors used a SaaS specific currency to settle payments for software subscriptions, that would have petrodollar implications for global currencies markets. In countries where even food and transportation is paid for by a software subscription this could finally jump the barrier which crypto failed to cross: being able to actually pay for everyday stuff like bread and milk with internet money.
I’ve wondered why a network the size of Stripe has not issued its own currency to bypass the Visa/Mastercard middleman. Maybe political pressure? If SaaS vendors used a SaaS specific currency to settle payments for software subscriptions, that would have petrodollar implications for global currencies markets. In countries where even food and transportation is paid for by a software subscription this could finally jump the barrier which crypto failed to cross: being able to actually pay for everyday stuff like bread and milk with internet money.