Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I think it's a combination of Amazon murdering any competitors that can work at scale, Germany's general conservativeness around payment systems, and not-so-great shipping companies (when we lived in Germany, companies like GLS and Hermes were really bad).

In The Netherlands and we have a healthy ecosystem of larger retailers (Bol.com, CoolBlue, etc.) and smaller local shops. Everyone uses the same frictionless payment system (iDEAL) that just works with your bank account and is supported by all Dutch banks. Most companies have next-day delivery, many companies do so if you order between something before 22:00 or 23:00. Bol.com has same-day delivery for some products when you order before 12:00. Some shipping companies also deliver on Sundays, etc.

The conservativeness in Germany really jumped out at me: people still prefer paying cash (can't remember the last time I used cash outside Germany), lot of people hated internet banking (not sure if it's still the case now, but certainly was in 2018 when we left Germany), there are no store openings on Sundays, etc.

(Disclaimer: I lived in Germany)

Germany is still one of the rare places where it's totally fine to buy a Porsche with cash. There was a good article (missing the link, sorry) how the Italian mafia uses this loophole to launder money.

And another thing is credit cards in restaurants. We just had a big dinner with friends, were the last ones to leave from the restaurant. They advertised credit card payment, but for some reason the machine was not working when we needed to pay and we went to the ATM to get a pile of cash. It's not the first time this happens and not the first restaurant either. I've never had issues paying with card in any other country.

To contextualize: As it is now dealerships and any other merchants have to document buyers (by showing id) purchasing with cash above 10k€ and may ask for proof of origin of the money.

In 2027 all cash purchases above 10k€ are forbidden due to EU law and purchases above 3k€ have to be documented.

A law putting an (reasonably low) upper limit on what you can buy with cash is quite draconian

Cash is the only anonymous (and widely accepted) payment option left. There's already certain regulations in place (revolving around ATM limits, buying noble metals, proof of origin, identification on payment, etc) and they're gonna get updated in 2027 with new EU regulation, so the outlook is not great on that front.

And no store openings on sunday is one person's consoomerist nuisance and another's day off. And before you say, they'll get another day off, consider the value of having synchronized leisure time.

I don't live in Germany but hate internet banking and de-letterization and other "digitalization" because it's first step in erosion of rights. The second step is forbidding the offline version.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com