We have forgotten the deeper reasons that certain things were prohibited or discouraged, assuming that these rules were only there because of a belief in a religion society doesn’t follow anymore. That was a naive view and it turns out that many “old” rules are actually pragmatic social codes disguised as beliefs. This isn’t limited to a particular tradition, either: pretty much every major religion has frowned upon things like gambling.
And so in the absence of any real coherent philosophy that aims to deal with complex problems like gambling, addiction, or excessive interest rates, you’re only going to get an expansion of what is already dominant: markets.
Don’t expect this to change until knowledge of ethics and philosophy becomes widespread enough to establish a new mental model for thinking about these issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Min....
Prior to that, usury laws existed in most states that restricted consumer loans to something like 5-13%.
Personally I don’t have an issue with the concept of interest itself, but if you look at the huge amount of Americans in debt paying 20-30% on credit cards, it certainly seems excessive and usurious to me.