I've always reflected on the idea of deleting my social media accounts, especially after studying media in University. The more I learn about social media, and other forms of media the more aware I am with regards to what I post and share online. At the same time, I have friends all across the globe and use social media to stay in contact with my friends. I have a question though, would you consider Whatsapp to be social media? Especially because users can share stories on the platform.
Don’t think of it as “I have to quit all Social Media. What is the exact definition of Social Media so I include it in my quitting?”
If you think something you are doing is harmful, just stop doing it and don’t worry if it counts as Social Media. It is highly personal and will be different for everyone. For some people their WhatsApp usage is a net negative and they should stop. For other people it might not be.
As someone who frequently uses E - scooters in a major European city i can see both sides to the argument on rather or not the6y should be banned. While they are convenient, there is minimal supervision in terms of following regulations and they are dumped around the city. That being said, they are fun and make getting around a city a lot easier, especially if trams are delayed or busy.
There should be more countries who are also taking these steps in order to help reduce waste and help the environment. We are fully aware of the harm plastic bags cause and there are many other alternative including paper or reusable bags.
I thought paper was just as bad, if not worse, because it takes more energy to produce. [Here's a random site about it[1], though please note that I've done pretty much nothing to vet the information.
I reuse plastic bags (garbage, traveling w/ liquids, picnics), and if I have a bunch of extras, I take them to the grocery store, where they have a recycling bin for them. I don't know if they actually get recycled (I read that they often end up in the landfill regardless), but there's a chance. I rarely get too many though because most of my shopping is at Costco, which doesn't provide them.
I disagree that a ban here is necessary or useful. I use them quite a bit, so at least for me, I'll be producing "more" waste because I'll need to buy new bags instead. Paper bags aren't as useful (can't hold liquids, are more rigid, break easily), and I always seem to forget my reusable bags.
I wish more stores would follow Costco's lead and reuse those cardboard trays, which are just as useful for carrying groceries to/from the car and are obviously recyclable and biodegradable. Honestly, I prefer them most of the time because they keep things from rolling around, I can carry more in one trip to the house, and it's easier to see where certain things are for organizing later.
What we need isn't a plastic bag ban, but maybe a tax on them based on the cost of cleaning up discarded plastic bags. It costs $0.05-0.15/bag to buy small garbage bags (bathrooms, office, etc), so the tax shouldn't be more than that. Charging for plastic bags seems to work[2], so why not just do that instead of a ban? Those of us who find value in these bags can continue to use them (I love them for dirty diapers, rotten food, and other stuff that shouldn't hang around the house for days), while those who don't can use other bags.
I believe the big problem is cleanup, not production. "They end up clogging city drains and sewers" is the key here -- a mix of plastic bags & dirt is much more effective at blocking drains than just dirt. And this matters a lot in cities with monsoon rains & terrible garbage collection. (Even before you mention downstream effects, like bags in the ocean.)
In city with excellent garbage collection, plastic bags used once and then (say) incinerated in the city heat plant may well be better than paper. Although as you say re-using cardboard boxes is always a great idea too.
This is the correct answer. In Pakistan, poor people will also often burn garbage, including plastic bags - which releases toxic byproducts. Ensuring that plastic bags are all collected and properly disposed off is difficult, banning them is easier.
Plastic bags are _short term_ less costly to produce, but unlike paper they do not readily degrade in the environment and produce long term environmental damage. They're not the only or largest proportion of plastic pollution, but you move a mountain one stone at a time.
Reusable bags are a habit thing. Once you're in the habit of taking bags with you it's much easier, but is a right pain until then.
I do agree a minimum price might be better, at least that would make medium-term degradable bags (corn starch etc) more readily used as they're currently out priced by non-degradable plastics. However sometimes the outright ban gets things moving faster.
For reference plastic bags have been banned where I live for two months now. I don't miss them.
The problem is that there is no "proper" way to dispose of plastics. That's why plastics have become such a problem. They simply accumulate in the environment.
You can say that about anything. If things are "properly" disposed of, they go in the landfill. Decomposition isn't an issue, because stuff doesn't really decompose that much in landfills: they've dug up old landfills and found newspapers perfectly intact from the early 20th century. The main problem with plastic bags is what happens when they aren't disposed of properly. Paper bag litter will decompose fairly quickly, but plastic bags don't. The corn starch ones are a lot better, and have been around for decades now, so I'm not sure why those aren't required everywhere that still uses plastic bags, because they would ameliorate the problem significantly.
Me, too, and the only reason it is an issue is because you and I grew up with stores that would provide you all the bags you need (and in fact would have stared at you oddly had you brought your own bags). Think you’d forget if no grocery store had ever given you a bag?
Time for you and I to both develop some new habits. I started by always keeping bags in the car; if I forget, I just have to walk back across the car park. Hell, I’ve taken to keeping a bag in my backpack should need to make a purchase on the electric push scooter.
The key here is to make a habit of keeping your reusable bags in your car's trunk so they're always there when you need them. Then if you forget to bring them in with you, punish yourself by going back out to the car to get them; after doing that a couple of times, you'll remember when you park to get your bags and bring them in with you.
>Those of us who find value in these bags can continue to use them
They are actually pretty useful for many small things. I use them for lining my bathroom's tiny little trash can, for keeping food waste in my fridge until I throw it out (you can't put avocado pits in the garbage disposal, and if you throw them in the main trash they attract insects), and I also keep a couple in my backpack just in case I need an extra bag for carrying things.
>Is there a giant swirling mass of paper bags in the Pacific Ocean?
I'm quite sure there's no giant swirling mass of plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean.
Sure, there's a huge amount of plastic pollution there in gyres, but it's not from people using plastic bags at the grocery store in middle America. It's from stuff like shipping containers blown overboard, and various other trash that has gotten into waterways.
Your other points are sound I think, but not this one. If you want to complain about the gyres, then you need to take aim at ALL plastics and discuss banning them ALL. That'll basically set our technology back to the early 1900s or so.
The problem is if a plastic bag ends up in the ocean it never really breaks down or degrades. Turtles tend to eat them since they look like jellyfish, and this causes enormous knock-on problems when turtles start dying from eating too much plastic.
Turtles could eat paper bags all day and probably be fine.
They may not be the #1 contributor to the Pacific Garbage Patch, but they're a component of it.
My point is that plastic bags from most places in America are not winding up in the ocean. They sure as hell aren't getting to the ocean from people in Kansas being sloppy with plastic bag disposal. There's a lot of problems with plastics in the oceans, and I have a hard time believing that plastic grocery bags are one of the major contributors.
But as I said somewhere else in this discussion, I think all these grocery bags should be made of the corn starch plastic that breaks down quickly, and I'd like to know what those weren't mandated since they've been around for at least 20 years now.
Single use non-plastic items made of other materials like corn starch would be interesting, but they're going to have to be sure to not brand them as "plastic".
I am without words after reading this article. Very well done, and raised many questions regarding failed marketing strategies as well as to what lengths some major corporations will go to.
I am wondering if the new S2 geo indexes are downwards-compatible and can be used with existing data from previous release. Do you see any obstacles for upgrading to 3.4 coming from an older release?
Most things in 3.4 are actually fully compatible to older releases. The new S2 geo indexes are an exception here. They are a completely new implementation and use a different storage format. However, index data will be automatically be converted into the new format when upgrading from older releases (e.g. 3.3) to 3.4.
>Yet for many Germans, the convenience of electronic payment is beside the point. Rather, the use of cash has, to a surprising extent, become a proxy for profound concerns about trust, privacy, and the role of the state.
I've been banging my head against the table since moving to Germany about the lack of convenience with cash payments and the need to constantly visit the ATM. Yet the economy is doing just fine.
Personally I find the push in Sweden to only use card much more annoying. Cash tends to fail much more rarely for me than cards. Of course there's no reason why they can't coexist but since much of the official point of cashless is tracking, cash will always be bad for those pushing for increased surveillance.
Incidentally when I lived in Berlin I used to only use cash and I never found it a bother. My bank had ATMs in many places and it really wasn't very hard to keep cash around. I've always found it a little odd when people talk about ATMs as being inconvenient when historically they're probably as convenient as they've ever been. Of course it is always easier not to have to go to an ATM, but today it really isn't that hard unless you have some tiny ATM network.
Regardless, having both cash and cashless is definitely the best of both worlds. Convenience, redundancy, autonomy. I wish people would stop unnecessarily view the two methods as incompatible when they complement each other so well.
I don’t think the view is that they are incompatible with each other, but rather that cash is incompatible with the motives of payment processors and banks.
There's also the security angle. You can't rob a cashless place of business. This is the official reason given by many businesses here in Sweden as to why they're going cashless, and many who don't go cashless use lockbox systems where the cashier can't access the cash at all. The machine dispenses correct change as part of a transaction, but otherwise it's locked tight.
I'd be interested to see any data collected regarding this; whether or not armed robbery against things like restaurants and grocery stores has decreased after the move to cashless.
If the benefit of cashless is that you don't have to carry around a pocket full of cash, they're incompatible in the sense that if you use both, you lose that benefit.
>Cash tends to fail much more rarely for me than cards.
It's the same in Denmark. The payment processing networks are really stable, just not stable enough to eliminate or not always carry enough cash to pay for groceries.
When payment processing have 100% uptime for five years, then maybe we can debate eliminating cash in some places.
How exactly is it inconvenient? I can't really think of anything. For example, proponents of cashless payments often like to claim that paying with cash takes more time than paying with a card, but the opposite is true. [1]
And if you have "the need to constantly visit the ATM", then perhaps it would be a good idea to withdraw more money to last you longer? My bank actually doesn't allow withdrawals of less than 50 Euros, but even before that was introduced I simply withdrew the money I needed for a month at the beginning of a month -- and that was it.
- instead of just going to a shop, I now need to go to a bank, and then to a shop - I mean that's pretty obviously and undeniably less convenient for a start
- I have to carry a lot of little bits of valuable paper around with me - enough for an entire month of expenses in your opinion!
- when I pay I have to wait for them to count the money, gather up the change, return the change, which I then have to count, compared to just tapping my card and going
- I get no protections such as insurance for my purchases
I can't how understand how anyone can argue cash is more convenient!
And how can you possibly argue cash is faster? Paying by card takes 0.5 seconds - I don't have to even look at what I'm doing I just wave my card and go.
Your articles talks about arcane things like inserting your card, paper printouts, signing with a pen - you haven't needed to do that with cards for a decade or more.
Hmmm...if you go to a bank to withdraw cash every tine you go to a shop I could see your point, but I would suggest that "you're holding it wrong".
> I have to carry a lot of little bits of valuable paper around with me
Which are limited in terms of risk, whereas a card can withdraw...whatever your limit. Carrying the bits of paper (and coins) has the big benefit of being tangible, that is we get to use all our senses to understand something otherwise very abstract.
> when I pay I have to wait [..]
Err...sorry, cash transactions are invariably much quicker than card transactions around here.
> I get no protections such as insurance
You mean you don't have ridiculous services bundled together for no reason whatsoever.
> I can't how understand how anyone can argue cash is more convenient!
And I can't understand how anyone can argue that cards are more convenient, when they clearly are not.
>And how can you possibly argue cash is faster? Paying by card takes 0.5 seconds -
Where? Around here, card transactions always take longer.
> arcane things like inserting your card, paper printouts, signing with a pen [..] decade or more.
Actually, having to sign on EC payments has become a thing recently, it used to be exclusively PIN. And sometimes it's PIN, sometimes it's signature, in the same shop, with the same card. They payment processor seems to choose by some randomized algorithm.
> whereas a card can withdraw...whatever your limit
Cards also have a dispute process.
> much quicker than card transactions around here
That's because German vendors are hopeless at processing cards.
Australia/HK/Singapore/China/most of Europe: the reader prompts you with the sale amount. You tap your card. It adds zero time to the transaction.
Germany: the vendor asks to hold the card. They insert the card. They ask the terminal to do a credit transaction. They give the reader back to you for the PIN. You hand it back. They ask for your ID because you're a foreigner. Blah blah blah.
> having to sign on EC payments has become a thing recently
So you're actively going backwards, then?
I'm also going to point out three other annoyances with the German banking system:
- Cash machines are rare (kilometres apart)
- To avoid fees, you have to use machines in your network
- The fees on out-of-network withdrawals are huge (3-5 EUR, but apparently unrestricted; I paid 10 EUR for a temporary ATM at an event once).
>That's because German vendors are hopeless at processing cards.
I could not agree more with the process you described every time I pay with a card in Germany. Germans point to this inefficient process for the reason cash is faster.
However, when I lived in the US, Australia, and NZ you literally tap your card with paywave and the transaction is complete. It is impossible for a cash transaction to be faster than this.
It's more secure than your two weeks' worth of untraceable cash that you're lumping around everywhere.
If you lose your card you cancel it. I can do this on my phone in 30s flat when I notice it's gone. Things bought in the mean time are covered by the card provider, and they prosecute the criminal to get the money back.
If you lose your two weeks' supply of cash what do you do?
Nope. If my cash is gone, that's all that's gone. With a card, you can do a lot more damage.
Cash also doesn't get denied for random/unpredictable reasons when you are abroad.
> 30s flat when I notice it's gone.
Coordinated gangs will clear out your bank accounts faster than that.
If I lose my cash, that's it. I don't have to cancel anything, I don't have to reapply for anything. I can borrow cash, or loan out some cash. Easy peasy.
Virtually no retailer in Germany accepts credit cards because the fees are too high and price competition in Germany is pretty brutal (just for reference: Walmart, which steamrollered US retail had to retreat from the German market, in part because they simply couldn't compete).
So you are paying for these services, and yes, cost of living is higher in the UK, for example:
Oh, and the terms imposed on retailers by credit card companies are pretty brutal, too. For example, they push most of the risk of fraud onto the retailer. If you think that doesn't matter: KAGI went out of business due to fraud.
So what's happening when the purchase is "taken off" your credit line is that the retailer gets hit, doubly, meaning they have to raise prices on everyone to stay in business (see higher cost of living above) or they go out of business (see KAGI example). German retailers don't want this and German consumers don't want this either.
And of course the credit card companies have managed to create a tax on the entire economy, essentially a rent-seeking/parasitic business model, while pushing all the cost and risk onto others (the general public and the retailers). Now if I were a credit card company, I'd be all "Yay!". As a consumer or a provider of products and services...not so much.
And again, the convenience, while shiny and cool, is at best trivial, and I would say offset by other conveniences such as haptic processing, fungibility, loanability ("Quick, can you loan me €50?", "Er, here's my card?").
And there is significant added complexity in the system, which can fail fairly dramatically. For example, when I was in living in the UK my UK card would not work just about every time I went abroad. "Fraud protection". Hah. I've had that happen a lot more than I ever had cash lost or stolen, and the consequences are more severe. The bank suggested I should contact them every time I went abroad. Excuse me? I need to ask my bank for permission to travel?
That's one thing that's also a very important lesson for software, particularly performance: in almost all cases, resilience is more important than (peak) performance. You really want to strive to avoid bad outcomes, not make the already good outcomes a few percent better. This is harder, but more worthwhile.
And of course the point of credit cards is to get you to spend money you don't have, which is also why eliminating that haptic feedback of money leaving your wallet was and is so important. And surprise, surprise, credit card debt is (shockingly) high at least in the US and the UK.
It should be noted that nowadays that pretty much every German retail chain takes credit cards (MasterCard, Visa at least). Lidl, Aldi, Rewe, Kaufland, many Edekas, Media Markt, Ikea, Rossmann, DM, Obi, etc. all take them.
I used to take 200 euros every few weeks at the ATM when I lived in Germany, and had to carry around min. 30 euros to be sure I could run errands on my way home or whatever. Honestly I didn't feel comfortable taking all these bank notes from the atm in the middle of other people, and carrying so much cash all the time. Had I been robbed, or had I lost it, it was simply gone. A card fraud you can contest (and hopefully be covered if your bank and card insurance is good enough)
Now that I've left ? Rarely have more than 10 euros in my pocket, can take 20 euros at ATM and not give a shit about fees. I can pay with my card everywhere.
Well, that's the prisoner's dilemma "defect" strategy. Works great one time round. Not so well in repeat games, as of course it means everyone pays more all the time.
All three of your last points are a non-issue if you have the right bank. DKB allows you to use your Visa to withdraw from any ATM, worldwide, without any fees. I'm sure there are other German banks with similar offers.
No more wondering if an ATM is part of your network and end up with outrageous fees. I see an ATM, any ATM, I can use it to withdraw cash, simple as that.
If you go for cash as part of protecting privacy etc. it seems contrary to suggest that you have to pick a specific bank in order to ensure convenience of paying with cash.
Surely retaining your privacy includes being able to choose freely who you do business with?
But going to N shops is more convenient than going to N shops + 1 bank isn't it? I mean it is literally strictly less places to visit.
> whereas a card can withdraw...whatever your limit
That's not my liability - it's the card company's. As long as I'm not negligent, like giving someone my PIN, I am not liable for someone stealing my card and using it. I don't lose anything.
I'm strictly liable for less value with card than cash.
> Where? Around here, card transactions always take longer.
How does it manage to take longer? Don't you have contactless in Germany? If you don't, then that's the problem - not the cards themselves.
The last point seems debatable given Germany's backward card infrastructure, but for liability and number of places I have to visit, it just seems a mathematical fact that cards are more convenient.
Only by 1/N. And since there are ATMs near my shops and it's mostly about trips, not about # of shops, it's both negligible and certainly well worth it for the benefits. And if that epsilon of effort is too much for you, you can get cash-back at most grocery shops, though the amount will typically be smaller, one reason I prefer the bank ATM.
> That's not my liability - it's the card company's
Not around here it ain't. And of course if the card company "takes on" the liability, it just redistributes it to its customers. So you are paying for it.
> Don't you have contactless in Germany?
Rarely if at all. Also I don't see how contactless (you just swipe? No PIN?) manages security.
So: tangibility, security and data protection are clear benefits. Convenience as well around here, and can only be improved by making the entire thing less secure.
It sounds like Germany has a self-imposed chicken and egg problem - you don't think cards are better, so you don't implement modern cards, but card aren't better because you haven't implemented modern cards.
We had a card-provider sponsored big-bang on contactless payments years ago in the UK and it's been an epiphany. Life is so much better cashless.
No, for us, the value proposition is just not there. The benefits are at best highly marginal and the disadvantages profound, if less visible.
> card-provider sponsored big-bang
Hmmm...and they did this out of the goodness of their hearts?
Cards were introduced in order to get you to spend more, in particular money you don't have, which is why it started with credit cards.
Making a payment by card is essentially the same, whether it's € 1 or € 100, or even € 1000. With cash, there's a bit of a pause as you count out the bills. And you notice it much more when prices go up. etc.
And of course the whole brouhaha about anonymous digital currencies. Huh? More technology to fix problems with technology? How about we use this really old technology that already has all these benefits.
> No, for us, the value proposition is just not there
You don’t see the value because you don’t know what’s possible. For example you asked if you ‘swipe’ a ‘contactless’ card so you must not know what other countries’ cards can do. (You don’t swipe it - that’s the whole point - it’s without contact - contactless.)
> Hmmm...and they did this out of the goodness of their hearts?
No they benefitted but so did we - not everything is a zero sum game and sometimes everyone can work together for society make progress but someone needs to nudge.
> Carrying the bits of paper (and coins) has the big benefit of being tangible, that is we get to use all our senses to understand something otherwise very abstract.
This is a much bigger deal than a lot of people will admit. It's a lot easier to waste your money without a second thought when you're using a card. It's similar to chips in vegas - you're much quicker to gamble the chips than you would have been with cash.
It's not as big of a deal if you're really responsible financially, but if you're the kind of person who binge-shops amazon then going cash-only for a few months might be an eye-opening experience.
Where is "here"? I agree with your parent, in places that support Apple Pay/Android Pay/PayWave/contactless payments (e.g. Singapore, the UK, and surely more that I don't know), cashless is easily more convenient.
In places that don't have contactless payments, cashless may be less convenient but contactless is probably on its way there so your argument seems like a bit of a straw man. At any rate, I'm sure it can be agreed that contactless cashless payments are more convenient that cash ones.
I am visiting Berlin at the moment, and I miss the convenience and speed of being able to pay with contactless, by card or phone.
Regarding the speed of transactions: cash might be faster than signature or even Chip+PIN, but is surely not faster than contactless.
For example, anyone with a contactless Visa/Mastercard or phone can enter the London Underground by simply tapping at the barrier. They do not need to have a pre-existing relationship with Transport for London, to buy a ticket in advance, or to preload a stored-value card (as you generally must do in other city transport networks). And the ticket barriers open on average in 480ms. [1] That's pretty fast. You can't even pay by cash on a bus in London any more.
My example was to give quantitative evidence for the speed of contactless transactions.
It is true that there is no barrier in Berlin, but you still need to buy a ticket. For casual users such as myself, who don't have a season ticket, this takes significantly longer than 480ms: find ticket machine, queue, navigate menu, insert cash, wait for change and ticket to be printed, find ticket validation machine.
It is quite possible to miss the train here by having to queue to buy a ticket, particularly in busy places like the airport. This could be avoided if the tourists were able to use their existing cards/phones to tap in.
> instead of just going to a shop, I now need to go to a bank, and then to a shop - I mean that's pretty obviously and undeniably less convenient for a start
On my way to work, before I get to the subway station, I pass no less than three banks with ATMs where I can withdraw money. You can even withdraw money in supermarkets without fees if you spend a certain amount of money.
> I have to carry a lot of little bits of valuable paper around with me - enough for an entire month of expenses in your opinion!
Possibly. I never said you have to carry around all of it at any given time. But I'd think that it's pretty much expected that you always have cash in your wallet in Germany.
> when I pay I have to wait for them to count the money, gather up the change, return the change, which I then have to count, compared to just tapping my card and going
That takes...a few seconds? How is that an issue?
> I get no protections such as insurance for my purchases
Protection from what exactly? Insurance for my groceries?
> I can't how understand how anyone can argue cash is more convenient!
In Germany it is. That's a simple fact.
> And how can you possibly argue cash is faster? Paying by card takes 0.5 seconds - I don't have to even look at what I'm doing I just wave my card and go.
Yes, contactless payment is also possible in Germany, depending on the stores and whether you have the right card. But the way it's implemented here doesn't make it that much faster in the end.
> Your articles talks about arcane things like inserting your card, paper printouts, signing with a pen - you haven't needed to do that with cards for a decade or more.
Oh, I guarantee you, it's not arcane at all in Germany, it's used every day.
- The smaller amounts (equivalent of a more or less dollar) are coins, not banknotes. They make your wallet way bulkier.
- When paying with a bank note straight out of an ATM (usually a 100 PLN note), the clerk will usually ask you for a smaller note, and sometimes refuse to do the sale, as he has no change. Other times, he'll take your hundred, but with an eye roll.
Meanwhile, contactless card transactions take under 10 seconds and work pretty much always.
Signing no, but inserting the card and entering pin is a commonplace in europe, the whole payment takes maybe 20 seconds. This is how everybody pays in malls whenever I visit (france, switzerland).
Contactless payments - no thank you, I like to have some control over my cash flows.
The mix of both is by far the best - have cash when you need it, have a card when you need it. Why can't people understand that not everybody thinks/behaves/lives same as they do?
Plus, I get an instant notification on my phone whenever my card is used. And if I see anything suspicious, I can freeze the card via the app (declining all further payments).
Since the site was unusable and I wasn't able to look up the study they cite I'll have to make a small assumption:
Based on the date of the article, I assume this mostly precludes contactless payment. As a personal anecdote, a salad place I know in Berlin recently switched over to card-only and they specifically encourage and educate people to make use of the contactless payment feature thats enable in most debit/credit cards Germans have. They went from unmanageable long queues that made eating there a chore to almost no queues and one of the fastest ways to pick up food via that single change.
I thought it was just me.
On Chrome the site kept on reloading as soon as I scrolled down. Managed to bypass that behavior by hitting the "cancel refresh" button as soon as I scrolled down.
Still, a weird thing to happen, this morning Twitter had a pretty similar issue with their GDPR message: It would keep on reloading and reloading, making the whole thing unusable, until you manually told the browser to stop reloading.
This behavior persists with or without adblocker active, did GDPR break the Internet?
> For example, proponents of cashless payments often like to claim that paying with cash takes more time than paying with a card, but the opposite is true.
That really depends on the type of cashless payment you are using. EC payment usually takes longer because it involves the process of preparing the reader, having the customer put in his card, wait till the reader is ready, input pin, wait again, done.
But I've also seen contactless card payment with Visa/Mastercard that didn't require any PIN entry/signature, those are surprisingly fast.
cards charge a fee so it is in the interest of card issuers to collect fees. Speed has nothing to do with anything and it clearly a lie.
Cashiers handling cash are a liability because they can steal and make mistakes more easily than a computer system, so paranoid business owners can reduce that particular risk.
I moved from the Netherlands (one of the most cashless countries in Europe) to Berlin 3 years ago. I invite anyone doubting the convenience of cards, specifically contacless ones, over cash to join me for a regular morning of shopping groceries in Berlin and then in my hometown in NL. You will be cured.
i totally agree. I live in Amsterdam since 7 years and everytime I visit my family in Munich , I am surprised a backwards they are. And how inconvenient cash is.
At least they have their money purses in restaurants and give you change in an instant instead of fumbling it like in other places. They are as efficient as cash allows it to be.
(And most places that cards only take German cards)
Its refreshing to read a hopeful and positive piece about the future of America. So much has been written of the state of the great divide between races, conservatives and liberals, heartland America and the coastal liberal cities, republican vs democrats. At least out of all this turmoil there is a sense of activism and involvement in politics I have not seen in years.
>“If you want to create a great community, you move someplace that needs your help,”
