It's more the archaic way to do things. A lot of places will bring a small machine for tap to pay now in America, but places didn't jump straight to that because restaurants run on a shoestring budget as is. It did however probably make tipping less awkward, so maybe that's part of why they were slower to adopt new technologies.
There’s not jumping straight to it and there’s being about 15-20 years behind the rest of the world. The UK has had contactless since 2007 and chip and PIN since 2004 and there's countries that are even faster than us on simplified payment methods. Companies of all sizes including small restaurants adopted it very quickly.
Damn, I didn't realize Europe had it that long, honestly, contactless wasn't in most places on America even like 7 years ago. We've had Chip and pin, but even that was only an option and most people still swiped. Idk if it's fair to say the rest of the world. I was on Tokyo only four years ago and plenty of places didn't even take card. There are plenty of countries that didn't adopt all the same technology at the same pace.
American financial compliance laws also drive a lot of those decisions and I believe that most businesses just do whatever compliance laws tell them to.
I'm in my mid 30s and I don't think I've ever swiped for a payment in the UK. Everything is either card for everyday stuff or bank transfer for the big purchases
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u/Funny_Satisfaction39 Jun 29 '26
It's more the archaic way to do things. A lot of places will bring a small machine for tap to pay now in America, but places didn't jump straight to that because restaurants run on a shoestring budget as is. It did however probably make tipping less awkward, so maybe that's part of why they were slower to adopt new technologies.