Every single time the subject of robocalls or spam texts is brought up on HN, someone claiming to be from Europe shows up to ask why it's a U.S.-only problem.

Then people from Germany and France and Greece and the U.K., and elsewhere in Europe show up and say how they have to deal with it, too, and it's not just an American thing.

In my RSS feed are several European news sources, and they all talk about robocalls occasionally.

Who are these apparently very few people in Europe who allegedly have never dealt with telephonic spam, and why do they always feel the need to talk about their personal situation when it has no bearing on the discussion at hand?

You state that you "hardly ever receive unsolicited SMS or phone calls."

I'm in America, and I too get unsolicited messages "hardly ever": about one unsolicited SMS per month, and spam phone calls about six times a year on my work phone, and maybe once each year on my personal phone. Don't delude yourself into believing that every phone in the nation is flooded with spam all the time.