4 ms·

America's infrastructure is behind other developed countries because once upon a time it was AHEAD of it's time. When you have a legacy infrastructure that is g

by mamon 9y ago

America's infrastructure is behind other developed countries because once upon a time it was AHEAD of it's time. When you have a legacy infrastructure that is good enough it is harder to justify the cost of replacing it with something else. African countries, or Eastern European ones didn't have this dillema because they didn't have a legacy infrastructure to deal with.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
alkonaut 9y ago
All western countries had faxes, magnetic strip cards, paper check payments, etc. And most of them have no traces of that. I think there must be some other element to it as well, and it's probably not only "well US is big". I think one is the diversity of states and companies. Having tons of systems and businesses communicating over several state borders with varying regulations, it's very easy to just settle with the lowest common denominator which might be faxes, cash etc. Second I think it's a big cultural difference. In the EU for example (Which is looked on with at least as much suspicion as "federal government" in the US) we see it as an important job of central government to put agressive timelines for introduction of modern tech. Because things like this (chip + pin) for example is a herd immunity thing where the cost to upgrade is only motivated if customers actually have the cards etc - so we are very happy to see legislation requiring non-chip credit cards to be phased out, for example. Technological advance like this, or environment rules etc., is NOT seen as overreach, where a lot of other laws would be. Third it's the power of corporations in relation to government. If corporate lobbyists see that a regulation will affect their bottom line (such as all of retail having to buy chip+pin equipment within 3 years) they protest. In the EU, there is just no chance that a retail lobby would be able to resist EU legislation that was advertised as good for consumers.
- lostboys67 9y ago
  Chip and pin was also about pushing the liability onto the consumer
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    I never heard any discussion about liability difference in the EU. Now: before chip + pin the cards were magnetic strip + pin. I never had a pin-less card. Perhaps that is a difference?
lloeki 9y ago
> America's infrastructure is behind other developed countries because once upon a time it was AHEAD of it's time This is ludicrous. Look at this timeline[0]: 2008 SEPA pan-European payment instruments become operational (parallel to domestic instruments) 2010 SEPA payments become dominant form of electronic payments 2011 SEPA payments replace national payments in the Eurozone 2014 SEPA becomes fully operational in all Eurozone countries. 2017 Instant SEPA payments of up to 15,000 euros within 10 seconds, starting 21 November And that's not counting national norms like RIB[1] that have allowed for trivial domestic next-day transfers since even before I opened my first bank account like 20 years ago. Same goes for chip and pin, which was basically ubiquitous even then. Now NFC payment terminals have basically been deployed everywhere over here across a couple of years, which means things like Apple Pay just works (and Android Pay if Google cared enough about non-US/UK/Canada/Australia markets). So the argument is "US was so advanced multiple decades ago that it rather stood still despite massive inconveniences to the end user". Breaking news: it wasn't ahead of its time at all even 20 years ago, and free market competition didn't do squat to make the situation change; policies enacted in the interest of the consumer do. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Bank_Account_Number#Le_terme_RIB https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Bank_Account_Number#Le_t...

by mamon 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

alkonaut 9y ago

All western countries had faxes, magnetic strip cards, paper check payments, etc. And most of them have no traces of that. I think there must be some other element to it as well, and it's probably not only "well US is big". I think one is the diversity of states and companies. Having tons of systems and businesses communicating over several state borders with varying regulations, it's very easy to just settle with the lowest common denominator which might be faxes, cash etc. Second I think it's a big cultural difference. In the EU for example (Which is looked on with at least as much suspicion as "federal government" in the US) we see it as an important job of central government to put agressive timelines for introduction of modern tech. Because things like this (chip + pin) for example is a herd immunity thing where the cost to upgrade is only motivated if customers actually have the cards etc - so we are very happy to see legislation requiring non-chip credit cards to be phased out, for example. Technological advance like this, or environment rules etc., is NOT seen as overreach, where a lot of other laws would be. Third it's the power of corporations in relation to government. If corporate lobbyists see that a regulation will affect their bottom line (such as all of retail having to buy chip+pin equipment within 3 years) they protest. In the EU, there is just no chance that a retail lobby would be able to resist EU legislation that was advertised as good for consumers.

lostboys67 9y ago
Chip and pin was also about pushing the liability onto the consumer
- alkonaut 9y ago
  I never heard any discussion about liability difference in the EU. Now: before chip + pin the cards were magnetic strip + pin. I never had a pin-less card. Perhaps that is a difference?

lloeki 9y ago

> America's infrastructure is behind other developed countries because once upon a time it was AHEAD of it's time This is ludicrous. Look at this timeline[0]: 2008 SEPA pan-European payment instruments become operational (parallel to domestic instruments) 2010 SEPA payments become dominant form of electronic payments 2011 SEPA payments replace national payments in the Eurozone 2014 SEPA becomes fully operational in all Eurozone countries. 2017 Instant SEPA payments of up to 15,000 euros within 10 seconds, starting 21 November And that's not counting national norms like RIB[1] that have allowed for trivial domestic next-day transfers since even before I opened my first bank account like 20 years ago. Same goes for chip and pin, which was basically ubiquitous even then. Now NFC payment terminals have basically been deployed everywhere over here across a couple of years, which means things like Apple Pay just works (and Android Pay if Google cared enough about non-US/UK/Canada/Australia markets). So the argument is "US was so advanced multiple decades ago that it rather stood still despite massive inconveniences to the end user". Breaking news: it wasn't ahead of its time at all even 20 years ago, and free market competition didn't do squat to make the situation change; policies enacted in the interest of the consumer do. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Bank_Account_Number#Le_terme_RIB https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Bank_Account_Number#Le_t...