It is not about the fees, it is about making you feel responsible. The average Joe will now not care about balances, amass them in collections, bad credit, and ultimately bankruptcy.
I saw more than one post about people maxing out credit cards to go long on Bitcoin or other crypto, ALREADY anticipating they will not pay back those cards and just go to collections to pay back 30-40 cents on the dollar. It's like it's become the norm to default.
Does your credit really matter after you have a car, house and everything you want? If you default and pay collections, it drops off your credit in 7 years… just in time to buy a new car that would need credit.
If you really need to declare bankruptcy, then that also drops off in 7 years. I knew a coworker that amassed 100k in credit card debt, declared bankruptcy and then in 2 years he had credit cards again from the SAME creditors. Even go a car loan and mortgage shortly after that.
They can't not give credit to people. If they stop doing that, consumption grinds to a halt and thus the economy grinds to a halt. Governments the world over will literally forgive debts, bail out the banks, whatever it takes if the situation gets bad enough. They prefer that to just letting people deal with the consequences. I feel like a sucker paying all these bills. I'm not sociopathic enough to take advantage because that's not the way my father raised me. The feeling never goes away though.
Even countries default. Such is the risk of giving money to someone else: they might not actually pay you back. Maybe these banks should think thrice before extending lines of credit to people.
But they want to efficiently allocate the funds, don't they? Let them reap the consequences of their own decisions.
