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I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the US. Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. And those damn cookie notices!! Because they show up in every page, everybody accepts the policy without questioning, which completely defeats the purpose. And worse for the user experience, most often the implementation of websites for those notices is dummy, and show the notice upon refreshment, even after having accepted the policy before.

tomcooks 9y ago
Dunno about Germany but in most Europe i lived cashless. Maybe I am misunderstanding your line about living with only a credit card.
- juanmirocks 9y ago
  No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.
  - novaRom 9y ago
    What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).
    - rifung 9y ago
      > Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?
      - kenoph 9y ago
        Yeah, that's not really a good point. But the other two points stand and are two very good points.
      - omnimus 9y ago
        Totally legit reason in some countries. In Czech republic this became such a topic that half a year ago the government implemented a new system. Now every single payment cash or cashless has to be sent in real time to central gov server. This also means that every merchant has to have digital terminal so almost all of them accept credit cards. Many restaurants (especially those with good service + good price) had to increase their prices a lot since then.
        rifung 9y ago
        > Totally legit reason in some countries. Sorry but what is a legit reason and it's a legit reason for what?
    - juanmirocks 9y ago
      I’m with you that Cash has the benefits of anonymity and no fees. However, it’s also inconvenient, specially when you are traveling. Digital transactions are also faster. — On a side note, that’s why I’m, besides all the hype, a strong believer of cryptocurrencies.
    - jimnotgym 9y ago
      > sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.) The EU also recently introduced and controls on credit card fees (that a merchant pays) with the aim of making it as cheap to transact as cash. That is of course only true if cash isn't being used to avoid taxation.
  - darklajid 9y ago
    You can go without cash for a lot on Germany. Train tickets, groceries, cinema, restaurants, bars.. All of those and more work fine without cash (you need Maestro, but everyone has one of those). It fails if you want to buy food in the streets maybe, not every Doner can be paid by card. But.. that's normal and aligns with what I see here in Singapore now: Cashless, unless small food shop/hawker place or something similar. Germany doesn't accept _credit cards_ on a large scale. It does support paying with a card made of plastic usually..
raverbashing 9y ago
Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). Note not all cookies need the notice (which is a fact overlooked by most sites)
- juanmirocks 9y ago
  I live in Munich, Bavaria, and, to give an example, in most restaurants you will not be able to pay with a credit card. Having said that, you can pay once you reach a minimum amount with what they call an "EC-Karte", a sort of debit card.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    Yes, debit cards are much more accepted than Credit Cards. I don't use Credit Cards outside of online though
    - robert_foss 9y ago
      EC-cards are widely accepted, but debit cards are accepted to the same extent as credit cards are.
  - rconti 9y ago
    Yup, this was quite surprising to me having travelled a fair bit but not been to Germany in 10 years or so. "I'm supposed to pay my dinner bill at a fancy restaurant.. in.. cash?"
    - bandris 9y ago
      "Germany is the land of cash." -- one of my German friends likes to say.
pgeorgi 9y ago
> And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's because we had our own system established in 1984 (ELV, electronic direct debit based on the EC cards mentioned elsewhere). From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade. - The system covered all German banks (private banks, public banks = Sparkassen, credit unions) because they got their act together and set up a single standard. - It had lower fees than credit card transactions. - Pretty soon the card was included with bank account fees, while credit cards cost extra. - It worked with a magnet stripe and automated electronic clearing in a time when credit cards were merely a slight convenience over manually writing a check which needed to be mailed around the country (you do know why credit cards have name + card number embossed to this day, right? Check out credit part imprinters). All that made it more attractive to merchants, and credit card companies weren't used to competing in a market that already had a big incumbent.
- juanmirocks 9y ago
  Thank you very much for this background information, I was ignorant of it.
- pierrebeaucamp 9y ago
  I don't think that matters at all. Many countries have their own debit card system and for what it's worth, I think EC cards are great debit cards. They can, however, not replace credit cards. All the benefits from credit cards really come from the fact that you're paying with credit: - Travel a lot? They sure accept Visa. - Want to pay some street vendor? Square is only possible because they don't need to dial your bank directly. Also the fee per transaction might be cheaper on debit cards, but the cost to acquire a debit card reader from your bank is still high. That's why virtually all larger vendors do accept debit cards in Germany, only smaller businesses are cash only (from my perspective).
  - supergarfield 9y ago
    The advantages you give aren't directly related to the cards being real credit cards, though. Visa debit cards work fine all over the world, and with Stripe. (In my experience it's very common in Europe for debit cards to be dual network, domestic and Visa or MasterCard. I don't know about Germany, though.) The real advantages of credit are spending money you don't have, and points/cashback.
lprd 9y ago
Uber is still in France. I just used them last week. If I remember correctly, most of the controversy revolved around another uber-like app which had little to no regulation.
mtgx 9y ago
Do you want for your bank or government to cut you off from any funds at any time?
randomsearch 9y ago
Lost me here, but are you trying to say the US is ahead of the game in terms of card payments? Because the States is clearly miles behind the EU. Do you guys even have chip and pin everywhere yet? Last time I was over, you didn’t, and we moved onto contactless in the UK years ago.
- hrasyid 9y ago
  I don't think the complaint is about how fancy the card is. It's about how easy it is to pay with cards. I'd say cards are much more ubiquitously accepted in the US than anywhere I've visited.
andrepd 9y ago
>Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. Funny, why would they ban a company simply for breaking the law? It throws me off too. In all seriousness, Uber's business model seems to be a mixture of disregard for labour and transportation regulations and of using their endless supply of investment to aggressively drive the prices down. Do you expect the governments to sit and watch?
- tluyben2 9y ago
  > Do you expect the governments to sit and watch? No and if laws are broken something can be done, but there are too many cases / stories, like the one described for France in this thread, where the gov was not really interested until they got forced by some corrupt (smelling) means by the big taxi companies and their lobbies. And i'm sure (but maybe that's just cynicism from living life) those companies are not going out for 'the law' or against uber specifically; they would go after anything that is competition for them in any way they can. Uber just is easier because you can play a few cards which are internationally known; big trees catch a lot of wind as we say in NL.
ethelward 9y ago
> Things like having UBER banned for example in France You have no idea what you're speaking about, do you? Uber is not banned in France. It's being investigated for multiple suspicions of breaking the law. > Because they show up in every page, everybody accepts the policy without questioning Well, if people can't read a notice, I can't see how that's the fault of the EU. > And worse for the user experience, most often the implementation of websites for those notices is dummy So now, it's the fault of the EU regulations if websites are cheating with the law and breaking UX.
gkya 9y ago
Uber undermines local taxi businesses offering mild comfort and some wows but also no job/social security and no quality standards (like the London Knowledge for example). It outcompetes taxis by sidestepping regulations. And just like airbnb while it was meant as a means to share one's own property for extra income, that's hardly the case in reality. People use both for full time commercial activity, and they evade taxes and regulations through them.

tomcooks 9y ago

Dunno about Germany but in most Europe i lived cashless. Maybe I am misunderstanding your line about living with only a credit card.

juanmirocks 9y ago
No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.
- novaRom 9y ago
  What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).
  - rifung 9y ago
    > Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?
    - kenoph 9y ago
      Yeah, that's not really a good point. But the other two points stand and are two very good points.
    - omnimus 9y ago
      Totally legit reason in some countries. In Czech republic this became such a topic that half a year ago the government implemented a new system. Now every single payment cash or cashless has to be sent in real time to central gov server. This also means that every merchant has to have digital terminal so almost all of them accept credit cards. Many restaurants (especially those with good service + good price) had to increase their prices a lot since then.
      - rifung 9y ago
        > Totally legit reason in some countries. Sorry but what is a legit reason and it's a legit reason for what?
  - juanmirocks 9y ago
    I’m with you that Cash has the benefits of anonymity and no fees. However, it’s also inconvenient, specially when you are traveling. Digital transactions are also faster. — On a side note, that’s why I’m, besides all the hype, a strong believer of cryptocurrencies.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    > sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.) The EU also recently introduced and controls on credit card fees (that a merchant pays) with the aim of making it as cheap to transact as cash. That is of course only true if cash isn't being used to avoid taxation.
- darklajid 9y ago
  You can go without cash for a lot on Germany. Train tickets, groceries, cinema, restaurants, bars.. All of those and more work fine without cash (you need Maestro, but everyone has one of those). It fails if you want to buy food in the streets maybe, not every Doner can be paid by card. But.. that's normal and aligns with what I see here in Singapore now: Cashless, unless small food shop/hawker place or something similar. Germany doesn't accept _credit cards_ on a large scale. It does support paying with a card made of plastic usually..

raverbashing 9y ago

Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). Note not all cookies need the notice (which is a fact overlooked by most sites)

juanmirocks 9y ago
I live in Munich, Bavaria, and, to give an example, in most restaurants you will not be able to pay with a credit card. Having said that, you can pay once you reach a minimum amount with what they call an "EC-Karte", a sort of debit card.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Yes, debit cards are much more accepted than Credit Cards. I don't use Credit Cards outside of online though
  - robert_foss 9y ago
    EC-cards are widely accepted, but debit cards are accepted to the same extent as credit cards are.
- rconti 9y ago
  Yup, this was quite surprising to me having travelled a fair bit but not been to Germany in 10 years or so. "I'm supposed to pay my dinner bill at a fancy restaurant.. in.. cash?"
  - bandris 9y ago
    "Germany is the land of cash." -- one of my German friends likes to say.

pgeorgi 9y ago

> And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's because we had our own system established in 1984 (ELV, electronic direct debit based on the EC cards mentioned elsewhere). From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade. - The system covered all German banks (private banks, public banks = Sparkassen, credit unions) because they got their act together and set up a single standard. - It had lower fees than credit card transactions. - Pretty soon the card was included with bank account fees, while credit cards cost extra. - It worked with a magnet stripe and automated electronic clearing in a time when credit cards were merely a slight convenience over manually writing a check which needed to be mailed around the country (you do know why credit cards have name + card number embossed to this day, right? Check out credit part imprinters). All that made it more attractive to merchants, and credit card companies weren't used to competing in a market that already had a big incumbent.

juanmirocks 9y ago
Thank you very much for this background information, I was ignorant of it.
pierrebeaucamp 9y ago
I don't think that matters at all. Many countries have their own debit card system and for what it's worth, I think EC cards are great debit cards. They can, however, not replace credit cards. All the benefits from credit cards really come from the fact that you're paying with credit: - Travel a lot? They sure accept Visa. - Want to pay some street vendor? Square is only possible because they don't need to dial your bank directly. Also the fee per transaction might be cheaper on debit cards, but the cost to acquire a debit card reader from your bank is still high. That's why virtually all larger vendors do accept debit cards in Germany, only smaller businesses are cash only (from my perspective).
- supergarfield 9y ago
  The advantages you give aren't directly related to the cards being real credit cards, though. Visa debit cards work fine all over the world, and with Stripe. (In my experience it's very common in Europe for debit cards to be dual network, domestic and Visa or MasterCard. I don't know about Germany, though.) The real advantages of credit are spending money you don't have, and points/cashback.

lprd 9y ago

Uber is still in France. I just used them last week. If I remember correctly, most of the controversy revolved around another uber-like app which had little to no regulation.

mtgx 9y ago

Do you want for your bank or government to cut you off from any funds at any time?

randomsearch 9y ago

Lost me here, but are you trying to say the US is ahead of the game in terms of card payments? Because the States is clearly miles behind the EU. Do you guys even have chip and pin everywhere yet? Last time I was over, you didn’t, and we moved onto contactless in the UK years ago.

hrasyid 9y ago
I don't think the complaint is about how fancy the card is. It's about how easy it is to pay with cards. I'd say cards are much more ubiquitously accepted in the US than anywhere I've visited.

andrepd 9y ago

>Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. Funny, why would they ban a company simply for breaking the law? It throws me off too. In all seriousness, Uber's business model seems to be a mixture of disregard for labour and transportation regulations and of using their endless supply of investment to aggressively drive the prices down. Do you expect the governments to sit and watch?

tluyben2 9y ago
> Do you expect the governments to sit and watch? No and if laws are broken something can be done, but there are too many cases / stories, like the one described for France in this thread, where the gov was not really interested until they got forced by some corrupt (smelling) means by the big taxi companies and their lobbies. And i'm sure (but maybe that's just cynicism from living life) those companies are not going out for 'the law' or against uber specifically; they would go after anything that is competition for them in any way they can. Uber just is easier because you can play a few cards which are internationally known; big trees catch a lot of wind as we say in NL.

ethelward 9y ago

> Things like having UBER banned for example in France You have no idea what you're speaking about, do you? Uber is not banned in France. It's being investigated for multiple suspicions of breaking the law. > Because they show up in every page, everybody accepts the policy without questioning Well, if people can't read a notice, I can't see how that's the fault of the EU. > And worse for the user experience, most often the implementation of websites for those notices is dummy So now, it's the fault of the EU regulations if websites are cheating with the law and breaking UX.

gkya 9y ago

Uber undermines local taxi businesses offering mild comfort and some wows but also no job/social security and no quality standards (like the London Knowledge for example). It outcompetes taxis by sidestepping regulations. And just like airbnb while it was meant as a means to share one's own property for extra income, that's hardly the case in reality. People use both for full time commercial activity, and they evade taxes and regulations through them.