Maybe my memory is faulty, but I never remembered having to pay a surcharge to use a credit card. Now everywhere I go there are signs saying that there is a 2.5-3.5% surcharge to use a car (and others that say that there’s a 2.5-3.5% discount for using cash, I assume to get around wording)
When everybody started using the “easy” POS systems like Stripe, Square, Clover etc which typically charge 1-2% more for credit card fees rather than the more competitive but poorly integrated processors like authorize.net or the random guy coming into your business.