Another perspective for CC usage, i use to be a cash guy without a CC for several years. I learned that it’s pretty much impossible to rent a car without one while on a trip to Florida. Had to have my BIL put my car on his CC and I paid him cash. Huge pain in the a$$. Also when using your CC your using the banks money, not yours so if there’s a problem or issue you can dispute it and your not out the cash. Frank Abagnale noted it’s better to play with the banks money than your own, especially with all the skimmers placed by criminals to obtain your banking info.Just because some people like Henry don't have self control doesn't mean that people using credit cards are sheep. I collect a few thousand bucks in free travel per year on mine. I also pay my cards off bi-weekly and haven't taken an interest charge in 15 years.
Back in the day, I used credit because that was how I had to finance things to live. Once I got to a point where I didn't need credit, I paid it off, and lived the cash life for 8 years before starting on the "let's make money/rewards with cards" scheme. If used right, I'm going to get a return of 2-4% on average for any rewards I make, and always make back the annual fees on my cards. Also, I travel a lot --- I get 2x-3x points running travel on dedicated cards(e.g. 20-30 points per dollar instead of 10 without the card). And because I travel a lot my cards get compromised more often --- for which I have zero liability because they are credit and not debit. I travel to foreign countries and never have to worry about forex, atm issues, whatever.
So yeah, just because some people are incapable of having "self-control" doesn't mean that others can't benefit.
I’m not paying any interest and mine gets paid off every month. Is the CC program a racket for the banks? For sure, but with some self control one can get the protection of a CC without sinking into debt.