Sounds to me like the work of Zardulu the Mythmaker

Also, for a long time back until this year, money used to be close to free. Now interest is way up and suddenly companies are forced with the prospect of needing more revenue.

Ok, but if this new payment model takes over and there are no fees to merchants, I'm very skeptical those savings will be passed on to buyers. I think at this point credit card processing is pretty well priced in.

I think between rewards and actual credit, credit cards will probably be fine, but I'm curious if you think this solves for either of these use cases.