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Comment by jjgreen | Hacker News Reader

Yet cash continued to work.

So did cards, AFAICT. I haven't noticed any disruption at all. Not sure how many shops I've visited in the past days, but zero of them had problems.

I presume that the model that broke isn't particularly common. If the installed numbers are very small, that would also explain how the manufacturer failed to notice the new sales after 2018.

I'm in the north, it's affecting a lot of supermarkets and restaurants here.

And today I ran into several shops that had the problem. Hadn't until today.

I was going to say - it’s Germany. They still use cash for everything anyway.

Infuriating, really.

It got better in the last years.

But, yes, in a small village, you will probably still need cash.

The strong (read as "any") culture of privacy after having one of the worst invasions of privacy and security take place in the country isn't an unreasonable response to me.

The reason cash is predominant in Germany is not privacy concerns but horrendous fees for every transaction for smaller shops like bakeries. So the small shops often enough don't offer card payment that you simply have to keep cash on you. I have never met anyone that payed in cash because they want the privacy it offers. Quite on the contrary: people regularly complain about having to pay in cash.

Add to that a lack of "customer service" mentality (i.e. I don't care if I have to send the customer to an ATM) and probably a healthy dose of tax evasion.

At least where I live almost all bakeries have added card payment as an option during the pandemic. So clearly it's financially feasible to at least some extent.

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