When I was in Australia this August, most waiters were "Stunned" that I didn't need a pin to buy things. It doesn't take much to "Stun" a waiter when it comes to tech.
I ask this because, as an Australian, I pay for essentially every single purchase on Apple Pay. Everyone I know uses mostly their phones to pay.
Everyone I know has been using contactless payments on their credit cards (or visa/mastercard debit cards) for the past 5 years.
No one enters their pins on transactions under $150. Depending on the payment method, that number can be a lot higher.
[1] https://transportnsw.info/tickets-opal/opal/contactless-paym...
It's not that there's heaps of different scenarios, it's that there's America and the rest of the world.
They didn't know all the bells and whistles on their machine. It'd be about as surprising as if I whipped out a personal check and they found their machine had a reader for that.
I'm American, my card doesn't do contactless, nor chip and pin. I also used old straight swipe cards while there for fun.
I used cards for most purchases except at the melbourne market and a few other places where cash was required.
We haven't needed a PIN to buy anything like dinner in Australia for close to a decade now. Only exception is if you are going for a more expensive dinner where you might be. But then I doubt your credit card company is overriding that security precaution.
Above the limit, with Apple/etc Pay, I usually need to sign and have the card physically on you if the merchant asks for it. I think even my Paywave card requires a signature if used via Google Pay, but a Pin without, but I almost never use that one for large transactions.
Above the limit with Paywave/Chip/etc would make you enter your pin (and you already have the card on you).
If you're paying for expensive things, Apple/Google/etc Pay is a bit worse UX in my experience.
In Australia signatures are not considered a valid form of identification for transactions.
It's PIN or nothing.
We use contact for everything, with the limit being (for me) $100. Signature is explicitly not allowed any more (overseas cards excepted), with anything over $100 requiring chip + PIN instead. When I say everything, I mean that I don't recall the last time I saw someone use cash to buy a coffee, and the one mate I have who uses cash when he's out at the pub is a unique anomaly to me. Even our public transport systems are (slowly) moving towards augmenting existing NFC transit cards with just allowing you to tap your CC on the reader and charging you a ticket fee directly. I generally don't even bother carrying cash any more, and the biggest payment issue I encounter is whether AmEx is supported (since contactless terminals don't necessarily display that during the payment process).
I would be taken aback if one waiter here was "stunned" by you not needing a PIN to buy things. For "most" to be so beggars belief. As a sibling comment said, the only explanation I can think of is that if you're clearly American due to your accent, then many service staff will be used to Americans being the single different group who can't use contactless and thus prepare to hand over a pen for signature whenever they hear the accent.