Yes, this is product differentiation, features, demand elasticity, network/ecosystem lock-in, loyalty tax etc.
Just as software and internet also has a mixture of free to use, once off, subscription, usage metering and fixed cost revenue, so too does banking and credit services vary their fee revenue structure and sources for its various financial services and products.
It's very hard to make universal statements to how these are structured, but about the only thing I think I can say is that if you aren't paying fees, the commercial entity must be aiming to make revenue off of you being a customer in some way. Some savvy customers can get services with a net positive value for free, but the business at large scale is going to try to extract what value it can.
It's hard to give a universal statement on price structuring, but generally fees can help squeeze revenue out of sticky customers, customers who need your services, customers who do not provide enough net capital or volume-based revenue to cover your costs.
You can also use fees to explicitly target or select for particular users. For instance, in some money and credit markets or markets which offer various costly rewards you can sometimes split your customer base into good revenue sources and costly freeloaders. A fee structure can even help signal or self-select these costly customers out of a product or identify them for your other product lines.
Just as software and internet also has a mixture of free to use, once off, subscription, usage metering and fixed cost revenue, so too does banking and credit services vary their fee revenue structure and sources for its various financial services and products.
It's very hard to make universal statements to how these are structured, but about the only thing I think I can say is that if you aren't paying fees, the commercial entity must be aiming to make revenue off of you being a customer in some way. Some savvy customers can get services with a net positive value for free, but the business at large scale is going to try to extract what value it can.
It's hard to give a universal statement on price structuring, but generally fees can help squeeze revenue out of sticky customers, customers who need your services, customers who do not provide enough net capital or volume-based revenue to cover your costs.
You can also use fees to explicitly target or select for particular users. For instance, in some money and credit markets or markets which offer various costly rewards you can sometimes split your customer base into good revenue sources and costly freeloaders. A fee structure can even help signal or self-select these costly customers out of a product or identify them for your other product lines.