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)
It used to be against the terms that the businesses signed with the credit card companies. This allowed CC companies to build up their market share while offloading the blame. Then in 2013 a lawsuit ended with them not being able to enforce that.