The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here.
First and foremost:
"You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food."
What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out much. [EDIT: For those who don't know, Germanic doesn't mean German. Germanic means something different]
Then he continues to discuss how "fortunately, there seems to be a grassroots pushback against such globalising trends" which I find equally weird. He comments about the existence of burger joints and ramen bars as if these are literally destroying the city's economy. How are german restaurants (which definitely exist in Berlin) and foreign restaurants mutually exclusive?
I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons, not because of some made-up "grassroots pushback" against the big, scary globalism of.. foreign restaurants. (???)
Another obscure point is that "eager-looking under 18s try to get in [beer breweries], only to be politely turned away without any fracas." which is again, a very stupid point to make, since you are allowed to buy beer at 16 in Germany already.
Then he quotes a person of supposedly Eritrean descent saying “But the people coming now, they don’t learn German and they don’t want to work.” which sounds pretty much like your average alt-right talking point, that has been disproven over and over again.
I'm really sorry, but this person seems to know literally absolutely nothing about Berlin, Germany, or life in Germany in general. This article is mediocre at most and a farce.
The Critic is a slightly upmarket alt-right publication for establishing more culture war content and contrarianism in the British media landscape. Co-Founded by a strategist of the „European Research Group“, that far right Brexit group in the Tories, and funded by conservative millionaire donors as part of what some describe as pundit welfare strategy - financing enough weird cranks and their media projects to influence public opinion.
In general whenever such a publication is talking about a foreign locality, the aim is always to influence the local (here British) discourse, not taking something foreign on their own merits, but using it as a mirror for the authors’s pet peeve in their own locality.
It's not an article being shared in good faith. Look at OP's (sourpuss) submission history, and it's quickly apparent that their main goal is posting controversial bait. Most of their submissions fall far outside the site's guidelines, and their lack of discussion anywhere on the site basically cements them as a troll. Politics be damned, they seem to have no interest in fostering interesting discussion.
I've been flagging these ungratifying stories for a while now. Hopefully it teaches people to treat HN less like a tabloid...
The important thing to ask is whether these posts generate _curious_ discussion, as per the guidelines, which I definitely see here. Flagging because you perceive them to be "controversial bait" is a misuse of the privilege of flagging.
What Americans think is German is often mostly the Bavarian stereotypes. Pretzels, sausage, lederhosen, Oktoberfest. It's common for Americans to be surprised when they find Berlin or Frankfurt isn't full of that stuff.
The same happens in reverse: some Europeans think America is the land of cowboys and guns and fireworks, but that's really more like just Texas, and when they go to New York they're surprised by seeing none of that.
If you’re having trouble finding Bavarian food in Berlin, then you can’t be looking very hard. Hell, there’s even a Hofbräuhaus in Berlin https://www.hofbraeu-wirtshaus.de/en/berlin/
The article was written by a Londoner for a British audience. The man literally served in the British armed forces and didn't emigrate to the US until the 2010s. Not sure what America has to do with any of this.
That's a bit of a harsh tone, but the author didn't leave a good impression by getting their German names wrong. The second mention of Schnauze is missing an e, as is
> Kastanienalle Strasse
It's Kastanienallee. And as it's an Allee (an avenue lined with trees), it can't be a Straße (a street). Even if it were a Straße, it would be one word, or hyphenated. Sigh.
The article seemed really disjointed to me as well, as a person who's spent plenty of time both living in Berlin and out of Berlin. Jumps to gentrification, dabbles in "centralized currency", covers some social programs, all to wrap it up with immigration, "kids these days" and slips in the surveillance state before signing off.
Berlin's cash-only culture is definitely a shock to most tourists who come there from the EU and US. Whether it's restaurants that don't advertise "cash only" anywhere, only to surprise you when you pull out your card at the end, to späti that have ridiculous card minimums like 15+ euro. A discussion on that, the reasons for it, and the implications of moving away from it would have been interesting. But instead, we got an utterly confused mess from the author.
So lovely to read the word "Späti", as if everyone of course would know it's Berliner lingo for a late-hours convenience store... Any other Berlinism to report?
> I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons
Some do, some do it for other reasons. Especially older smaller shops are often do it for cost-reasons, or because the owners are old and don't care much for modern technology, or because they are young and hip and don't care for modern technology, which is especially in the Hipster-Areas of Berlin a real thing, which is a pretty sad thing in its own. I mean we are talking about shops who not just remain with physical cash, but where the whole shop and its vibes are oldschool, analog, without any advanced technology. At that point it's just part of the marketing and sellout-identity.
The general problem is, Cash is still the most reliable, simple and cost-efficient solution for payments. While Cashless still demands contracts and some equipment. Established Shops often have old bad contracts with high fees for cashless transfers, and prior to the pandemia, cashless was not used widely enough for them to gain a solid experience with it. This changed in the last years, but not for everyone, and old habits die hard.
I know from my own family, which is full of old and strange people, some even having smaller shops. Most of them have problem with such stuff, some are not even willing to use something like WhatsApp or a simple calculator-app. And yes, some also just don't care for tax, because this is also hard. Reasons are just manifold with that topic.
Standard fare in "The Critic" - it's just another mouthpiece for excessive wealth and rightwing culture warfare, like "Spiked" and so on, the wealth in this case belonging to Jeremy Hosking, a Tory Party, Vote Leave and Brexit Party supporter to the tune of £millions, who topped off his contribution to the deterioration of UK politics by becoming the "founding donor to the Reclaim Party led by Laurence Fox"[0].
(Fox, in case you're lucky enough not to know, is a minor UK celebrity best known for his provocative behaviour around race, Covid vaccines and gender/sexuality. You can easily guess the sort of thing he gets excited about, I imagine.)
> The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out much. [EDIT: For those who don't know, Germanic doesn't mean German. Germanic means something different]
You yourself admit that these places "don't stand out much". Does this not support the authors point that he had to work hard to find these places?
> I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons, not because of some made-up "grassroots pushback" against the big, scary globalism of.. foreign restaurants. (???)
Private payment processors (like MasterCard and Visa) can for any and no reason refuse their services. Ridiculing and dismissing the author's concern by pulling out the "big scary globalism" straw man is disingenuous.
> Another obscure point is that "eager-looking under 18s try to get in [beer breweries], only to be politely turned away without any fracas." which is again, a very stupid point to make, since you are allowed to buy beer at 16 in Germany already.
18 and older for beverages over 1.2% ABV (which is most beers).
> Then he quotes a person of supposedly Eritrean descent saying “But the people coming now, they don’t learn German and they don’t want to work.” which sounds pretty much like your average alt-right talking point, that has been disproven over and over again.
> Does this not support the authors point that he had to work hard to find these places?
Just because a tourist is too ignorant to find these places doesn't mean they don't exist. There are plenty of them. They are mostly old-school and don't have big ads outside. Use google maps. There are plenty.
> Private payment processors (like MasterCard and Visa) can for any and no reason refuse their services. Ridiculing and dismissing the author's concern by pulling out the "big scary globalism" straw man is disingenuous.
If you're pushing for cash-only or card-only other than for tax evasion reasons you're pretty much ideologically tainted.
Otherwise, I'm no longer going to discuss this "journalist outlet" that is just a mouthpiece for alt-right propaganda. Especially one that can't differentiate between germanic and german.
Where did I say that you could not buy beer? Please re-read the original claim.
> Just because a tourist is too ignorant to find these places doesn't mean they don't exist. There are plenty of them. They are mostly old-school and don't have big ads outside. Use google maps. There are plenty.
Again, where did I (or the original article) claim that these places don't exist? You continue responding to imaginary claims, this is no way to communicate.
> If you're pushing for cash-only or card-only other than for tax evasion reasons you're pretty much ideologically tainted.
Otherwise, I'm no longer going to discuss this "journalist outlet" that is just a mouthpiece for alt-right propaganda. Especially one that can't differentiate between germanic and german.
What a arrogant and dismissive statement. You seem to have taken offense at the author for not properly differentiating between germanic and german. Why is this so important to you?
Germany is probably the european country i know the less, despite learning german in school and working at a franco-german company for my second internship. So i won't talk about the traditionnal restaurant in germany, but just so you know: In France, Spain and Portugal, traditional restaurants don't stand out much (With the exception of French Bouillons like Chartier maybe?).
Is there a specific section of legalese you meant to link to? If not, it's a bit foolish on your part to expect the average (non-legal expert) to parse this. I let ChatGPT do it for me.
Prompt: Summarize the contents of EU 2015/2366
Response: EU 2015/2366, also known as the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), is a European Union directive that regulates payment services and payment service providers within the EU. It aims to increase competition and innovation in the payments industry, as well as enhance security and consumer protection. The directive requires payment service providers to implement strong customer authentication for electronic payments, and also allows for the use of third-party providers for certain payment-related services, such as account information and payment initiation. Additionally, it also includes provisions for the protection of consumer rights, such as the right to a refund in case of unauthorized payment transactions. Overall, it's a set of rules to increase safety and transparency of online payments and to foster competition between payment service providers, which ultimately should lead to better services and lower prices for consumers.
The only consumer rights mentioned are the right to refunds for unauthorized transactions. To the best of my knowledge, these companies can choose to cease doing business with you for any or no reason at all. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Kind of weird to see people so proud of never using cash. It’s fine to prefer a card but to stop people from using cash altogether scares me. And of course the argument here is that criminals use cash which is pretty hilarious.
Assuming the claims is correct: Why should the government waste money on having a bill which is almost only used to make drug deals easier? Better to just remove it out of circulation. Yes, it will not stop drug trade, but why should the government actively help facilitate it?
And if the claim isn't true? Did anyone in government actually verify it? Did the drug trade stop?
If the claim is true, shouldn't the 100€ note also be taken out circulation? In fact, all notes? Where does one draw the line?
Perhaps money is the root of all evil. Be it digital or plastic or paper.
Drug cartels actually also use stolen artworks as currency. Which would now make an interesting study to see whether art crime actually increased since the 500€ went out of circulation ;)
Cash brings an inherent risk to the business that digital payments don't. There's no getting robbed at 10PM while bringing the day's revenue to the bank if the transfers are all digital, there's no emptying the cash registers when you can get a hundred or so euros at most. Insurance companies certainly don't lower their prices if you decide to keep a few thousand euros in the registers all day.
In supermarkets here, the cash in the registers need to be counted every so often to make sure nobody is stealing from the company (because that has happened and will always happen). This burden and the cost of labour associated with it also generally disappears when customers pay digitally only.
Don't get me wrong, though I myself pay almost exclusively digitally these days, I'm definitely anti digital-only payments. An internet or power outage could take out the ability to pay for anything for hours or days if society goes full-digital. However, the fact that cash has many downsides to the business owners is often forgotten in these discussions.
I can imagine a future in which the risk of paying by cash is compounded by higher prices. Payment by card is already free (well, the 25 cents transaction fee is worked into the product price) but I can see the reverse happening, like a ±€2 charge for every payment for making the business run the risk of getting robbed or losing money. Kind of like how postage stamps are getting more and more expensive because nobody ever mails anything any more and the postal service needs to earn its costs back.
I bet many people will very quickly lose interest in keeping cash around when the additional cost of businesses accepting cash hits them in their wallets.
There is probably a majority support for keeping cash as a privacy-friendly method of paying in Germany, as an addition to card-paying. But at least in my little bubble in Berlin, everybody hates the cash-only places.
When I go to lunch with my colleagues, we might be hitting one of the restaurants that are cash-only, and every time at least one person of the group won't have any cash on them, and have to borrow some. It's incredibly annoying, given that you can pay for everything by card in neighboring countries just fine.
> Berliners are polite
Also I'm not sure Berliners have been described like that ever before.
Back in the days when I first moved to Berlin, my landlord commented on a motorbike dealer with the words “we didn’t buy there, they were too friendly.” That’s Berlin.
At least many smaller businesses will probably continue to prefer cash as it is easier to commit tax evasion when there is no record of the transaction stored...
It used to be like that at first here in Sweden but then small businesses became the main drivers of card only. They did not want to deal with the overhead of both handling cash and handling card payments. These days you can mostly use cash as big companies. The few small business who still accept cash are either old school or do tax evasion. Especially now with contactless payments which makes card payments fast.
Often this is for tax evasion. There has been a discussion for over a decade now with ever new proposals from the IRS to halt cash only tax evasion in shops and restaurants. Recently a famous cook was sentenced to years in prison as he took $5M from the cash register over several years.
One criminal organization alone sold cash register software that lead to an estimated $500M in tax losses.
Then people should be free to use cash, but there's no need to lock out people who prefer card payment (I also prefer cash, but mainly because I'm old-fashioned).
But if a restaurant has a sign in the door "no card payment due to technical problems" for years, it's probably neither a technical nor a cultural/ideological issue ;)
Card payment does involve fees but they’re not as impactful on business as it may otherwise seem. As many others have mentioned places taking only cash, especially restaurants, do so generally for tax avoidance rather than less fees from the payment processor.
As someone who does live in Germany, things changed dramatically during Covid. So many more places accept cards now and I find myself needing to withdrawal cash a lot less frequently than I did pre-Covid. There are still a ton of places that don’t take cards but a lot converted to taking cards, and some even switched to card only after seeing the lower cost of having cash (less risk of break in, less to move around, etc.)
I've seen terminals "temporarily broken" for many months in Berlin.
Taxi drivers are supposedly notorious for having terminals (which are mandatory, as far as I know) that often break – and mysteriously start working again once you reveal that you do not have any cash on you as a passenger.
I know quite some Germans and except very view, everyone prefers card payment.
When I'm in a restaurant looking around, everyone is paying with card (Except perhaps for very small amounts where putting in a PIN is a pain. Since COVID and pin-free payment ~<$50 this seems to have changed too E.g. paying at a coffee shop for coffee).
Still are some places. The well known bitcoin bar in kreuzberg is gone, sadly. Corona killed it off pretty much. They did really good longdrinks for fair prices.
In Belgium since last summer you have to accept at least 1 form of digital payment system. Some places try to bypass it by only accepting some obscure creditcards. Most places that didn't accept card now also accept payment via the app Payconiq, which has lower fees than card payments, but uses the same network.
It also became illegal to add fees for using cards or refusing cards for small amounts. It's also still legally mandated to accept cash btw, although you're not obliged to offer change.
Our terminals have slowly evolved to support NFC cards and payment systems such as Apple/Google Pay, but those are rarely used here in my experience. I think it's because those systems are generally blocked here by credit card providers, plus we tend to prefer to use debit cards instead.
As someone who just left berlin for good after growing up there, it is repulsive to see a brit mourn the worst and backwards parts of "berlin" just because they are connected in his mind to some romantic roughness. Slowly fading of Cash only mentality, Piss and Smoking everywhere are among the very few positive developments i could see before deciding to leave. (Though it is still nowhere near feeling like a convenient or modern city.) Can we please stop using user tracking as an argument against supporting cashless payment? I have heard this so many times and no one talks about removing the option to pay by cash, just not forcing you to run half a kilometre to a ripoff cash machine in the middle of the night, just stop this.
That aside, i see a stream of friends leaving berlin with me in a relatively short amount of time, everyone has his own reasons but for me it was a mixture of not being affordable anymore, being backwards and inconvenient as well as feeling unfair (i moved to a different country, this is true for all germany) Most importantly i really feel the people changed quite a bit in the last 7 years specifically, not just in my surrounding but also the vibe of people on the streets and shops, everyone feels fake and pretentious, not in the tourist sense but in the sense of looking at instagram profiles of people you dislike.
Berlin is right now in this strange in-between state where countless places are cash-only while plenty of others are no-cash-at-all - both of which equally hipsterish.
Also fun when paying by card: the cheese seller on the market will only take credit cards (and using a Girocard/EC-Karte fails the transaction). And the restaurant around the corner only takes Girocards. They tell you with multiple signs and point it out again when you get your card, because if you try to pay with a credit card, their terminal will hang and have to be rebooted, which is a multi-minute ordeal.
Quick rant about paying for things in Germany - last week I was driving with my family through Germany, after 12 hours in the car we stopped for the night in a random village near Magdeburg, but it was already 9pm and we haven't eaten. We were pointed to a local greek restaurant, which turned out to be fantastic, really good food, but when the time to pay came, I was told they don't accept Visa or MasterCard. Only "EC-Karten". I said I don't have one, I don't have any euros, so what now. "Oh there's a cash machine at a bank in a town nearby" - so I had to leave my crying toddler with my wife and go and hunt this cash machine in the middle of nowhere, because the owner doesn't want to pay the Visa/MasterCard fees. I was since told that this is very common in Germany, and outside of the motorway petrol stations your Visa/MasterCard might not be accepted.
I was quite surprised to see signs at Aufbau Haus (Moritzplatz) saying that card payment is preferred. I refuse to pay with cards at point of sale anywhere I go; airports are making it quite difficult these days.
Thankfully NYC made a local law in November 2020 that prohibits businesses from declining to accept cash. I wish more cities would follow suit.
It's pretty straightforward to make oneself a right nuisance at these sorts of places when service/food has already been rendered: just leave your cards at home.
I've yet to find a retail place that wouldn't take cash payment after I'd already eaten. Usually one of the staff just puts it on their card.
During this last summer in Europe, I used ApplePay literally everywhere I went, even for the smallest purchases. A few places in Berlin -- more than smaller cities -- held on to "cash only", particularly the cafe around the corner from my Airbnb where I got coffee every morning.
But all the restaurants I visited have shifted to bringing the portable pay unit for tap-and-pay at the table, which I much prefer to leaving the card on the bill in the US and having it disappear for a moment while they ring you up at the central POS (still the standard practice in the US places I live near).
But: complaining about the trackability of digital payments while ignoring the lack of tracking built into the prominent platforms, and also decrying the overreach of digital legislation in Europe ("GDPR made things worse") feels like wanting cake and eating it too.
I never, ever use cash anymore... though I keep a few bills in the wallet for emergencies.
> But all the restaurants I visited have shifted to bringing the portable pay unit for tap-and-pay at the table, which I much prefer to leaving the card on the bill in the US and having it disappear for a moment while they ring you up at the central POS (still the standard practice in the US places I live near).
Perhaps offtopic, but that's such a ridiculously scary concept to me. I was already nervous when in another country the person behind the register took my card to swipe it for me, I don't think I would ever let them just take my card!
Payment culture differs between countries and just because I'm uncomfortable with the American way of doing things doesn't mean the American way is necessarily bad.
I'm used to not handing out my credit card for payment like I'm used to not handing out my wallet to pay. I'd love to live in a culture where I could trust random people to take my wallet, take only what I'm due, and then not abuse that trust.
> But: complaining about the trackability of digital payments while ignoring the lack of tracking built into the prominent platforms, and also decrying the overreach of digital legislation in Europe ("GDPR made things worse") feels like wanting cake and eating it too.
1. Accusations of hypocrisy is not an argument.
2. How can you claim that “the prominent platforms” lack tracking? Nobody could say for sure, except a few people, whom the rest of us can’t really trust.
3. People in Europe are also complaining about the trackability of digital payments. And those people also tend to like the GDPR.
If a merchant, especially in Germany, asks for cash, it's for tax evasion. It's as simple as that. And no, I don't care about your anecdotes how that is not true for your particular case. A small number of exceptions exist of course.
Olaf Scholz - the countries leader - is involved in the largest tax evasion scandal in the country - CumEx. He knew about it and did nothing to prevent it.
What kind of example does that set for the small business people in the country?
The politicians are massively corrupt in Germany (Berlins mayor lost her doctor title because she cheated and then she became mayor).
I can understand it when small business operators also want to avoid taxes - as the banks regularly also do.
Seems like avoiding credit card fees is a perfectly reasonable explanation, at least in the US where fees exceed 3%. It’s trivial for governments to catch businesses that hold a lot of inventory and are cheating on taxes by more than small amounts.
Not necessarily. Some small business use their cash to buy stolen goods. For example it used to be quite common for restaurants to buy stolen meat using their cash. You can also pay your staff in cash for some of their hours. Both of these are hard to catch unless you actively have people on location tracking the business. Plus removing cash can make other crimes less appealing (like buying stolen meat).
Usually this then says "No card payment under 10 Euros", but still offer card payment for bigger amounts where the fee doesn't matter as much (which IMHO is completely ok).
In Belgium since last summer you have to accept at least 1 form of digital payment now. Some places try to bypass it by only accepting some obscure creditcards.
Just look closely at your next few receipts. Chances are pretty high that some of them will say something like "Testrechnung" (test invoice) or "Keine Rechnung!" (not a receipt). That's the restaurant preparing to not report that income to the tax authorities.
Many European countries have made certified/financial cash registers mandatory to combat this, but I believe in Germany they are still optional.
The issue is so widespread, I remember hearing that the tax authorities fully expect some industries to only report parts of their income and have made peace with that fact. Mandatory reporting would apparently disrupt the economy too much...
That is the best reason to use cash. Isn't it scary that debit money guarantees you pay more taxes, and it is also used as evidence against you, and to violate your privacy?
Cash doesn't have any of those issues, its amazing. That's why governments hate it! (literally!)
Because it doesn't get reported as income, there's no record of it. Thats why central banks are purposefully hindering it - it takes away their capacity to confiscate and control with it.
The capacity to not pay taxes is a very important tool of civil disobedience, just like protesting in a public street.
You can still not pay your taxes if you want to use tax fraud as a method of civil disobedience. The government doesn't just grab a random bank account and take money from it.
Sure, they'll send collections after you and get the money one way or another, but it's not like a bank account is going to make any difference there. They'll force open your door and sell your stuff if you make it hard enough for them, not sure how that's better.
They care when people owe them money, the same way you care when people owe you money. They prefer not to have to bother to send someone to your house because even though you'll be the one paying for the extra costs, it takes time and effort spent better on other things.
I'm sure the "taxation is theft" crazies will have some legal fanfiction about how the government can't just take your money if you only use cash but in practice you're only getting yourself into trouble for no good reason if you try to commit tax fraud.
Pretty sure, yeah. My tax forms have always been filled in for me because the government already knows what I earned from what company. It's why doing taxes takes five to ten minutes every year. With income tax held back automatically by the employer and VAT and other tariffs added directly to the store price, I've never had to think about this stuff.
It's possible that I may have dodged a few dollars of taxes when buying crap out of China when they put a fake bill in the outside to dodge import taxes, but I don't believe there's a way for a consumer to manually pay those once the package has crossed the border undetected. These days they've changed the system, though, so I don't think it would happen again.
Sounds great. I have a business proposition for you.
I will pay you 1000 dollars for the right of taking every single asset you have if at any point it is proven you haven't paid all your corresponding taxes.
This is free money for you and your sense of justice. I can send a contract as soon as today.
Then he continues to discuss how "fortunately, there seems to be a grassroots pushback against such globalising trends" which I find equally weird. He comments about the existence of burger joints and ramen bars as if these are literally destroying the city's economy. How are german restaurants (which definitely exist in Berlin) and foreign restaurants mutually exclusive?
I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons, not because of some made-up "grassroots pushback" against the big, scary globalism of.. foreign restaurants. (???)
Another obscure point is that "eager-looking under 18s try to get in [beer breweries], only to be politely turned away without any fracas." which is again, a very stupid point to make, since you are allowed to buy beer at 16 in Germany already.
Then he quotes a person of supposedly Eritrean descent saying “But the people coming now, they don’t learn German and they don’t want to work.” which sounds pretty much like your average alt-right talking point, that has been disproven over and over again.
I'm really sorry, but this person seems to know literally absolutely nothing about Berlin, Germany, or life in Germany in general. This article is mediocre at most and a farce.