Well yes, in the case of the airlines it's most certainly that and the government have stepped in.
However it depends on your perspective. I've been to Italy a bit recently where there seems to be a very different culture. Shops are incredibly suspicious of credit cards, they will often simply not take credit cards at all or ask you for ID. It's cash, cash, cash or cash, cash, bancomat. A lot of places that said they didn't take credit card said not to worry, we take bancomat and seemed amazed I had this little plastic thing (and also that they were doing me a major favour by taking bancomat). I did wonder about the reason this was the case and it seems to be because either folklore or true in Italy there seems to be an entire culture of hidden fees or added extras on just about anything*. Have a credit card? Get charged an annual fee. Have a bancomat? Get charged an annual fee (smaller) and then get charged for withdrawing cash and/or other transactions in some cases. Someone even told me and I'm not sure whether it was true or not that quite a few Italian bancomats only let you get multiples of 20 euros out upto about 50 euros and then you can specify an amount. In some areas even the number of bancomats compares poorly to the UK. Italy seems to be more like we were some years ago (we had quite a bit of this sort of thing). On the other hand go by rail in italy and the fast ticket machines all seem to have not only credit card availability but contactless payment! Similarly the Turin bus system has some kind of oyster style thing on it. So in some ways in the UK we don't have it as bad as we think. The lengthy queues that happen at Italian bancomats are also something to be seen before us impatient Brits complain!
*Seems to be the case for many other things such as some public toilets, some toilets in eating facilities, all kinds of paperwork and so on.
