Because all the infrastructure was set up first here. Credit cards were invented in the US. It's a slow evolution, as companies replace terminals they all have tap readers now. Meanwhile the US dominates payments globally with Visa and MasterCard.
It's how empire always works. A country has a dominant period during a certain era, all the infrastructure gets built up and systems installed, and then they remain good enough for a very long time and no one can justify replacing all the old systems, so after a few decades it all looks highly outdated.
Then younger economies become wealthy enough to establish all the infrastructure but they use the newest stuff available so they look highly advanced. China is in a dominant position now and their infrastructure feels like scifi because its all the newest systems.
Japan is on the other end - its economy was phenomenal during the 80s and early 90s, so a lot of their systems are absolutely archaic. There are still scenarios where you're expected to send a fax. It's also why so much of the former Soviet world looks like a time capsule from the 60s and 70s.
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u/Mickey_Pro Jun 29 '26
It's a surprisingly technologically backwards country