If the tech industry and the wider "disrupting" industries haven't been laissez-faire since the 90s then what on earth do you consider laissez-faire?
Governments around the world have let these industries do whatever they want with almost zero oversight and almost zero repercussions for anything. For decades. These companies and industries do whatever they want. Its only in the last few years that a couple of governments have finally started to push back a teeny tiny bit.
dude is saying it's even worse than laissez faire
it's laissez faire towards monopolies, let them be
but not laissez faire when a company is about to collapse, then the government rescues them. laissez faire would be less sympathetic. i.e. bank bailouts of 2008, automaker bailouts of 2020, current intel bailouts
thus not only is the government allowing monoplies/duopolies, but in fact pumping money into them to continue their survival
The reason these credit card companies wield so much power is the modern duopolistic system. "Monopolies are ILLEGAL" they said. Thusly, an array of duopolistic megacorps essentially acting as a monopoly. Something something game theory. Visa and mastercard. Coke and Pepsi. iPhone and Android. Windows and MacOS. Google search and google search. NASDAQ and NYSE.
The answer is to have 10+ actually competing, financially healthy payment processors. At some point the cabal-like duopolistic behavior breaks down.