[jonathancordeau]

"If you're a merchant I wouldn't see Visa and American Express investing and taking equity in Stripe as a good thing."

What's best for the merchant is what's lost in much of these discussions. The continued fragmentation of the industry has left merchants struggling to navigate necessary customization and even more difficult documentation; although Stripe has led well in this area. Since accepting alternate payment methods and the ability to switch processors is prohibitively difficult, competition is artificially constrained - leaving "fees as high as possible". That's why we're building http://accepton.com Would love to chat: jonathan [at] accepton {dot} come