Personal debt reached unprecedented amounts. For the interpreters of Revelation's prophecy, this new technology that makes credit card use possible was especially suspicious, because it extrapolates easily into a monitoring device. Visa and MasterCard know every item you buy, including where you buy them and when. Because credit card purchases must be authorized by an outside party, one unrelated to either the buyer or the seller, the transaction is under the absolute control of a system with unlimited reach. The Antichrist is building a global economic system, they say, and this computer technology is the beginning.
Every person is marked by it, is known by it.
This was the dilemma for those on the lookout for the Antichrist. The Book of Revelation specifically states that if you take the mark of the Beast, you aren't getting into heaven, but if you don't take the mark, you can't participate in consumption. Writers imagined that money in the end times would become entirely paperless and virtual. Satellite technology would eventually make consumption authorizations and identifications instantaneous, when credit card codes are finally supplanted by the mark of the Beast itself. In his vision, people without the mark won't have access to funds, won't be able to buy groceries or clothing or anything else.