Visa

In 1958, Bank of America mailed 60,000 credit cards to people in Fresno who never asked for them. $500 limits already activated, sitting in mailboxes next to electricity bills. No merchant had a terminal, no customer had a habit. It was a cold start into nothing. Bank of America lost money on every single transaction for two years. The losses were the point. No merchant installs a card reader when zero customers carry cards. No customer carries a card accepted nowhere. Both sides wait for the other to move first, so neither moves. Bank of America broke the deadlock by absorbing the pain upfront. Fraud ran rampant, delinquencies hit 22%. But merchants started accepting the cards. Once merchants accepted, customers used. Once customers used, more merchants joined. By 1976, the network renamed itself Visa and built the toll booth.