You’re online looking to buy an electric mandolin for your new music project, Bill Monroe's Outer Space Journey. You find one you like on a reputable electric mandolin website and put in your credit card info. You hit “buy” and, within a couple moments, your payment is approved and your instrument is on its way.
From your perspective, the payment approval process takes just a few microseconds. But the actual backend is fairly complicated. And an early step involves a payment gateway. The purpose of the payment gateway is to keep your credit card info safe while it gets sent by the website.
You know how, in high school (if you're not still there), if someone was trying to cheat off your test, you'd wrap your arm around the paper to keep them from seeing the answers? Well, first off, stop being such a narc. But secondly, that action is like the analog test-taking form of a payment gateway. The safeguard keeps prying eyes (digitally speaking, of course) off your card details.
