Very few people pay the fee, most people pay with a debit card or cash.

People trying to get air miles, cashback or similar have to pay the cost of that.

> Back in the day they were only for ATMs and very few businesses.

That was pretty much specific to German-speaking countries (or at least they were the only one, where I noticed that). Elsewhere, there was no such thing as ATM-only card (or even ATM-only PIN).

Yup. Visa Electron and Maestro are quite normal debit cards. I have one of those as well. Apart from renting cars you can pay for just about anything with it. Maestro has an ATM withdrawal fee even when you use it in the emitting bank's ATMs, which is a reason why I avoid it like the plague.

> Visa electron/maestro

Don't even exist in many places anymore. e.g. in the EU country where I live both were replaced ~8 or so years ago by Visa/Mastercard Debit (since they removed embossed characters the only way to distinguish them is the word 'debit' written in a tiny font.

Maestro is literally starting to wind down this year, supposedly they've decided to switch everyone towards Debit Mastercard products.

I assume there's gradually less and less appeal for a card that isn't as broadly accepted, and if it encourages more fee generation, all's the better.