“There will be one-size-fits-all pricing, and as a result, you’ll see the industry will be more egalitarian in terms of its revenue base,” said David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which tracks the credit card business.
...
“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Find a card that sticks with no annual rate, and cash in your "rewards" before the program structure changes. Cut back to one card, if needed, and pay with cash and checks locally.

If you shop around, plenty of companies surely will still want the accounts of those who live within their means and pay their bills on time. You see, we're what built up the shopkeepers who accept plastic everywhere out there now, and who pay that minute transaction fee to the credit card companies.

So called "free riders" sometimes contribute greatly to building the system, remember. Without them building up the faith in consumer credit in the first place, we'd still have a cash-and-carry patchwork system. Which might not be such a bad thing as it turns out...

People who routinely pay off their credit card balances have been enjoying the equivalent of a free ride, Robertson said, because many have not had to pay an annual fee even as they collect points for air travel and other perks.

“Despite all the terrible things that have been said, you’re making out like a bandit,” he said. “That’s a third of credit card customers, 50 million people who have gotten a great deal.”

Live within your means and pay on time; I've never felt so ... dirty!

Robert Hammer, an industry consultant, said the legislation might have the broad effect of encouraging card issuers to become ever more reliant on fees from marginal customers as well as creditworthy cardholders — “deadbeats” in industry parlance, because they generate scant fee revenue.

If keeping well-earned pennies out of the pockets of the greedy credit card companies, by living within your means, today makes one a deadbeat, well, we're 50 million strong ... and growing.

Happy hump day.