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)
In the early days of CC you were charged per transaction.
Then you weren’t.
Now they’re doing it again.
I’ve seen it vary by card and vendor many times.
Edit: by Early Days I mean when electronic clearing became ubiquitous in the early 90’s, as the clearing houses charged per cleared transaction. Before that you literally mailed the card that was imprinted via the credit card machine.