> As a general rule, the US is terrible at a lot of first-world things for a good reason: because it was the first (or close). Is that really true? ATMs were

> As a general rule, the US is terrible at a lot of first-world things for a good reason: because it was the first (or close). Is that really true? ATMs were first in Europe and Japan, BACS in the UK is older than ACH in the US. I think this is more about lack of coordination (i.e. political reasons) than something like a natural first mover disadvantage. German debit cards for example simply had both stripes and chip for the transition period.