In 2019, I was able to spend 4 days in Canada without touching a single Canadian Dollar. On the other hand, 4 days in Germany absolutely required cash at virtually every meal and other non-hotel purchase.

Many Germans don't. Or don't know their PINs. Or have horrible foreign transaction fees, since they never use them nor care.

Where do you travel? There are plenty of countries I've been to that don't accept any foreign cards. Unless you only go to the fancy hotels and restaurants, I suppose. But if you actually want to interact with small merchants abroad, you need cash.

I never travel abroad without cash, and that includes when I travel to Sweden.