Afterpay Valuation, page-1786

To my mind a moat protects you from competition. The issue you bring up is absolutely a potential problem for afterpay but in my mind that's a problem with the general business model not the difficulty to compete with them.

And yes I think the issue of passing on fees is a huge one for afterpay. The retail industry groups are massively pushing for the ability to pass on the fees and fees are much larger than credit/debit cards so I expect a lot more businesses to pass them on than they do for cards. Not all, maybe not most but a decent chunk.

The problem is if you can afford to pay upfront you're more likely to choose to pay $290 with card than $300 via afterpay. So even if it's a relatively small number of merchants it'll be purchased from the safest customers that they miss out on. And each time the customer chooses not to use afterpay is another chance for them to question whether they need it at all. Unfortunately for those who can afford to pay upfront afterpay doesn't really offer any value especially if it means paying extra.