> Germany is one of the most conservative societies in EU, they still insist on cash.

This has changed a lot since the pandemic, but only since then, and cash-only places are still common. However even many of the cards that people do now carry in Germany aren't true credit cards, unlike in the US. (True credit cards are however now accepted in most places that accept any cards, at least in Berlin, with a few exceptions.) Germans are very hesitant to accept even the level of debt that is involved in charging to a credit card which one pays off in full by the monthly due date, which doesn't usually involve paying interest.

> But even so, I'm surprised you can do large-value payments without PIN; even if you have a contactless card, those are limited to small-ish sums (less than 100E I believe) - so yeah you can buy a croissant, maybe you can even buy lunch in most restaurants - but it still can randomly ask for PIN on some expenses, AND it always asks for large expenses.

You're probably describing how things typically work for cards issued in your country, but that primarily depends on the issuer's policies, mostly not those at the point of sale. I'm familiar with what you describe from having lived in Canada before, where I did have some cards issued in Canada as well as my US-issued ones.

But that's not the way it works for US-issued cards. There isn't even a PIN for my card to prompt for if they wanted to prompt for one, since the card doesn't support that functionality; the most they can do, and this sometimes happens, is prompt the staff to ask for my signature. Some of the time the staff actually does ask me to sign, other times they don't.

I think they can also ask me to insert the chip, but most of the times this occurs (not all), it's the merchant trying to upsell me on a marked-up currency conversion option instead of just letting my bank convert for free. (Even for the many US cards which do charge for currency conversion, the typical merchant conversion mark-up is still higher than what the cards would charge, and then the cards often charge their fee anyway since it's still a foreign transaction regardless of currency.)

As for the 100 euro limit, I'm surprised if such a low limit still exists in your country. For the Canadian cards where I had a similar $100 or $200 limit, they raised the limit during the pandemic and never lowered it. My US card has no relevant such limit - I frequently tap for amounts above 200 euros at the pharmacy, and recently tapped a 1500 euro charge at a veterinary surgical clinic. Some of these ask me to sign, but generally not to insert the chip, and definitely no PIN. All in Germany, yes.

> I don't know but I don't think there's a simple answer. Certainly not "it's too expensive", US can afford it.

"Too expensive" doesn't always mean "too expensive to afford if it were to be prioritized". It can mean "too expensive to justify the expense". Which I think is in fact true in the US, at least given the various risks, incentives, and costs of the various parties involved.

> With cards in particular, it's also consumer apathy

It's not just consumer apathy - US laws are so protective of consumers who are victims of fraud that consumers in the US almost never lose any money or much money to card fraud, especially credit card fraud but even many cases of debit card fraud. Unlike on most topics, US laws in this area are far more consumer-protective than EU laws.

> But I don't think the status quo holds because it's too hard/expensive to change - it holds because there's not enough demand to change it.

Which is another way to say it's too hard/expensive to change. That is, it's too hard/expensive to be worth changing, not too hard/expensive to be possible to change.

> A very simple way to change all this would be a law that moves liability to the bank (instead of merchant) in case of fraud. Sure banks would hate it (which is why it won't happen), but also if it happened, they'd then have actual incentives to prevent fraud/ would need to start seriously contemplating "what is more expensive".

They'd also very successfully lobby to delay, weaken, or repeal that law, while making the cheapest possible noises toward compliance in the interim. Doing so is far cheaper than proactively complying in good faith.