Uh...just use your credit/debit card directly within steam?

Why rely on the scummiest third party payment app that's ever existed in the world?

The short is that the acquiring bank of PayPal has banned transactions to Steam in all non-Western currencies (exception being Japanese Yen).

or just use Wero which they are gonna use anyway

Not in the slightest (cost me 0), and I do.

I work at an accounting firm and part of my job is advising on automation software and the like, automating credit cards is a hassle and often impossible. Sometimes when it is possible, only half the transactions are posted (just the payments and not the money received from other your bank account).

If they don't cost you any more, then those are the once which are expensive on the stores you buy from. For one, there is additional bookkeeping to be done (deduct the costs from the payment when receiving the money) and the extra costs itself.

Not the main selling point.

For a lot of people on the internet, that small cashback is their reason they use it.,

A normal bank card spends your real money. Disputing through a bank may take longer. Until the bank returns money to your account, that money is gone.

A normal bank card is way harder to even get into a situation where you need to open a dispute and most credit card companies do not care about you getting scammed either btw because you authorised the transaction.

my checking account earns diddly squat interest & risk of unauthorized debits is meaningful (eg, debit cards)

Unauthorised debits are such a rare thing, nobody is going to accidentally wire money to you. Unless you are a business and it's a double payment.

You are also explaining the reasons as to why I said that technical benefit of earning money on borrowed money is bullshit for the average Joe. Why are we discussing this if we agree it's bullshit?

transferring between accounts (or selling less liquid assets) takes time

Transfers between accounts are instant these days and payments on your normal bank accounts can be a lot larger than on most credit cards. Credit cards are limited to 1k, 2.5k or 5k for most private individuals since you generally need to make x amount more a month (after taxes) than the limit of the card. The maximum on basically every bank account of a private individual is 50k

Constantly transferring between accounts for every single transaction is inconvenient. Leaving money in the checking account isn’t ideal due to low interest earnings & risk of unauthorized debits.

Irrelevant issue, you still gotta do this with a credit card since you have to pay off the dang thing. Most things are also a consistent thing and a monthly thing. You also mean unauthorised credits, btw. Banks turn around debit and credit like it's their party.

charge expenses to a credit card (at most 30% of its credit limit)
So like 300 bucks a month for most people, or 1500 if you have an advanced amount.

Always completely pay off a credit card by the payment due date. A credit card is a shitty account to carry a debt (any non-0 balance past the due date): only dumbasses do that.

This happens way more than you think, remember most people are terrible with money. You see this even more in countries like the US, where people take out loans for everything.

If it works like in the US, then as long as you make mortgage & all other bill payments on time, completely pay off credit cards by payment due dates, and keep credit utilization low (at most 30% of card’s credit limit), you should be fine.

In a lot of scenarios, they look at what you can monthly spend, because your past experiences don't dictate your future. In NL and other countries it works something like this,, but it is a lot more complicated in practise.
If you have a monthly income of 5k, you pay say 1k taxes from that, which means you have 4k left over. In NL, there is something saying that you can only spend say 75% of your net income on loans. In this example, that's 3k. If you have a car loan for 1k a month and a credit card of 1k and a phone where you pay 50 bucks for and a student loan where you pay 50 bucks for. Which means you can only spend 900 euro on your mortgage.
In the US system you might be able to take a mortgage of 2k (just guessing/execrating) because you always paid off your phone, car and credit card loans nicely. Which means you would spend 3,1k a month on loans. Which is one way that a people get into financial trouble.

Are mortgages not paid there in regular installments with due amounts like in the US?

And this is why the US credit score is bullshit because yes we do, everywhere in the world.

You don’t have an account (maybe savings) that earns better interest? You’re not saving for emergencies, retirement, or goals?

Ofc we have savings for emergencies, most people do. Most of my emergency fund is located in a savings account, but still instantly accessible, which means it is at a low interest rate. I could lock the money for a year to get like 2.9% interest instead of the 1.2% I am getting or something (it's on a free account).

It’s usually just slack time (until payment due date) to make a payment you would already make some other way.

Only the first month, after that it doesn't really matter.

Will they? That would be awesome but I haven't found any information on that.

If credit cards users pay higher prices than non-users, checking accounts are secure from erroneous/unauthorized transactions, and transfers are instant, then the use case for credit cards is less clear.

If they don’t cost you any more, then those are the once which are expensive on the stores you buy from.

That changes the trade-offs a bit.
I missed the assumption that credit card users pay the same prices (& no extra fees) as everyone else: processing fees are typically paid by the vendor who includes it in prices everyone pays regardless of credit card.

In the US, credit card users basically get short-term, interest-free loans subsidized by the hidden costs in processing fees everyone is paying.
Since consumers in the US mostly can't avoid the hidden costs, they don't benefit as much by avoiding credit cards as consumers in other places where consumers can avoid those fees by not using credit cards.

It doesn't help that those credit cards compensate (poorly) for deficiencies in our financial system as I'll explain.

A normal bank card is way harder to even get into a situation where you need to open a dispute

Maybe yours.
Here, online payments only need some numbers on the debit card & your name & billing address.

Unauthorised debits are such a rare thing

All it takes here is debit card information or an (e-)check.
A check openly shows your routing number & bank account number & states to pay from there.
Low barriers to fraud.

most credit card companies do not care about you getting scammed either btw because you authorised the transaction

Different here: by law no one who disputes a charge within 60 days is obligated to pay it until the dispute is resolved (within 90 days).
It's usually charged back immediately.
Due to weak security, authorization is easier to dispute, and they won't simply assume it.

Transfers between accounts are instant these days

Maybe in more civilized parts of the world.
In the US, transfers & payments between financial institutions usually take business days to settle.
Real-time payment is still uncommon there.

You also mean unauthorised credits

I agree that makes more sense in accounting.
It's often stated as I did with bank accounts & I gave up trying to figure that out.

I could lock the money for a year to get like 2.9% interest instead of the 1.2%.

My regular & emergency savings go in an account like this with 4.3 APY, and that's "instantly" (as fast as a checking account) accessible.
The slow settlement times, security risks, and "free" credit cards may offer some insights into our haphazard financial landscape & stopgap "solutions".
The stronger use case for credit cards here is a byproduct of this broken system.

Every American store supports credit cards in the form of Mastercard and Visa. Dutch cards will also work the same. With the extra requirement of 2FA, but that's handled by pretty much every payment gateway, the merchant doesn't get involved in that.

Ours is hourly for some reason, and it's only recently they started doing that.

Most Dutch cards won't work on North American sites. Our cards have an IBAN listed which cannot be entered on American sites. Paying with just the numbers on the card is not possibile unless it is a credit card or smething like Revolut iirc, which is bascially using the unsecure cards the American way or the 2FA system you explained, but that's not most cards.

Dutch bank cards are now being replaced with Mastercard, unlike the old Maestro ones, they also have 16 digit numbers that can be used online.

Yeah they are, but they will not be able to pay online with just the code since they have the IBAN listed and not the 16 digit code.

The new system is better anyway, why do we need to go back in time?