In Singapore, I saw how much could be done with the digital ID system. Filing forms, healthcare, banking—it felt like everything was one login away.
In the US, even a short hospital visit can cost thousands of dollars. It made me wonder why some basic things that clearly work elsewhere are missing here.
What have you seen abroad that felt obvious, but doesn’t exist where you live?
In other countries (eg australia), the ticket machines could only take a single coin at a time and would reject if you did it too fast.
I believe this is one (of several) reasons why cash has continued to be dominant in Japan.
I've seen people on YouTube using the U-Scan at Walmart like a CoinStar. Apparently if you lift where the coin slot is you can dump in coins and it will process it all. If the total is more than your bill, it gives you the money back.
While I'm not sure about the refund of an overpayment, there are also the toll booths that have buckets to throw change into. Though most tolls seem to be electronic these days.
US businesses are basically all wheelchair accessible - easily, too. Most sidewalks have curb cuts at street crossings. Ramps are commonplace.
This is NOT the cause in Europe, and not only in the historic old buildings.
Even using a stroller is noticeably different; I can’t imagine being in a wheelchair in some cities.
Has been for well over twenty years at this point.
It had a number of unexpected consequences, like making it much harder/illegal to rent flats over shops in much of the city centres.
For residential rental units, landlords must make ‘reasonable accommodations, unless they would impose undue financial or administrative burden,’ which means if you get paralyzed while renting an apartment that isn’t ADA compliant you’re probably fucked unless you can afford to add a ramp yourself, and pay to have it removed when you leave. Adding a wheelchair ramp would be an undue financial burden, so a landlord isn’t required to add one. Replacing the door to a unit with a 36” wide door would likely not be considered an undue financial burden, so if you live in a building with ADA compliant public spaces and elevators, you’re probably OK since the landlord will likely install a larger door.
Government owned housing is required to be ADA compliant.
Yes, of course Europe doesn't have any US laws but to suggest that it doesn't have legislation about accessibility is simply wrong. Guess what... the legislation generally applies to buildings and construction post-dating the legislation. Applicability to earlier structures will vary depending on feasability and justification (cost, traffic).
As a bonus there are no ticket barriers so no queues and no overheads of maintaining those machines.
Just as buying a ticket with cash is becoming increasingly hard in parts of Europe, I can see a near future where having a phone sending constant GPS updates becomes a requirement (a requirement in an strict sense, or the sense that the alternative is unreasonably cumbersome or more expensive)
Our public transport systems are so bad.
The Brisbane airport rail connection runs about half as many train services as the Perth airport, which seems about half the amount of travellers each year as Brisbane airport. It’s crazy, double the fare burden, half the patronage, and stuck in a monopoly contract until 2036.
Don’t even get me started on the stupid busways, gimped light rails, the new “metro” and the endless amount poured into the motorways that they have been widening one lane at a time for 3 decades…
Compare that to Italy/France/Spain (those that I know) where, depending where you are traveling to, you have to download, sign in, and give your credit card details to N different apps in different states of disrepair/being barely maintained.
Virtual credit cards (I use Revolut) that I then delete mitigate that, but still, what a mess.
In Germany water is not free, but instead another income for restaurants. Also it needs a law (only since 2001) that the cheapest beverage must be non-alcoholic. (Yet water could be more expensive than beer, as long as e.g. apple juice costs equal or less.)
Even if you don't order anything, you can just drink it and leave.
Some fancy restaurants don't allow it though.
Also: physical lockers with PIN/Code instead of keys (in basically every country aside from Germany). It's just completely bonkers to me, that German train station lockers still use physical Keys EVERYWHERE.
- Sweden’s national digital ID, run by banks - Used for login, payments, contracts, gov services - Legally binding like a handwritten signature
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/capping
Depending on the frequency of travel, it can be cheaper to get season tickets though
It was my impression that the whole thing was just about simplification in order to provide a better service.
It's a code you generate in your bank app to pay for anything - no need to fill in card details etc, you just provide this one time code.
1. Remove all mail from the mailbox
2. Place outgoing mail in the mailbox
3. Raise the outgoing mail flag
4. Carrier will empty the box and file outgoing mail during the next delivery before putting new mail in the box
Edit: here is a good example of a mailbox with that red flag https://www.amazon.com/Step2-541200-MailMaster-Mailbox-Black...
But this way around it makes a lot more sense.
Like they always shove (or drop) it into the mailbox so when there's letters that are obstructing the box from closing properly they know they didn't place them there so it's outgoing and they grab it.
In comparison with how tightly-guarded personal email addresses are protected (GDPR, etc.), it's shocking how common it is to freely give out your IBAN.
Better than being able to commit ACH fraud merely by virtue of having the bank's routing and account number.
Side note: shout out to both MB Way and Multibanco payments in Portugal that have made it so I haven't have to give payment information to an online vendor in years.
I'm not sure about Europe, but at least in the UK, what makes such a system secure is that the account holder can reverse any "pull" transaction for over a month, with the merchant being on the hook. So it reduces the incentive to exploit it (or at least shifts the risk off the account holder), to a level where it's pretty much never done.
In the US, I'd be more worried about a one-time fraudulent ACH withdrawal than a recurring payment situation.
I don't see a similar risk here. It seems like there are more hoops to go through to make a pull transaction?
I've only had to deal with credit card fraud in the US and it was easy enough.
I did have a restaurant accidentally charge me $983 instead of $98.30 on a debit card for a meal during a holiday and, even though they immediately voided it, that still ended up basically blocking almost $1000 for several days. I can't imagine reversing an ACH transaction would be faster.
Overall I have no huge complaints about banking in the US. I just find it better in Europe so far, particularly sending money with IBANs.
As a consumer, though, the way things work in Europe (at least where I live) just make more sense to me than what I experienced in the US.