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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

> It has always confused me

When this feeling occurs, why is the next step "wow the US sucks" instead of "there must be some good reason that I don't understand."

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It can be all of the above! Usually, however, it’s that we started a system earlier, or it has survived longer, for any number of various reasons, and has never needed to be fully replaced.

Same way that a country that never had anything before now won’t run copper telephone wires, and instead go directly to fiber backboned wireless.

So what do you think is the positive reason for US exceptionalism here?

As opposed to European exceptionalism that assumes that whatever is done in Europe is not only standard but also better?

I what way shape or form can settling money over several days be better than instant transfers with direct auth?

You can do that too! It's just that you can also use checks. I don't see the problem, instant money transfers are ubiquitous and were easy for me even as a visitor in the US. The fact that bank transferts take longer doesn't really matter day to day, they just don't use them for that

Just to be clear, I live in Australia and we also have 3 day cheque clearing but the banks and government are closing out on cheque processes and almost everything now is payid which is instant settlement. From what little I read it's more reliable than venmo.

the experience of being in other countries

Because the reasons that are there aren't good; most of the other countries had a similar situation but switched decades ago.

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