What's responsible for America's love affair for older technology?

[WindowPhil]

In much of the world, SMS texting is seen as an outdated and inferior system to messaging apps like Whatsapp, Kakao, Line, and Wechat. However, the United States remains an outlier in its use of the SMS messaging platform.

In much of the world, paper checks are obsolete and no longer printed. Money is transferred between people thorough digital means such as Interac E-Transfer (used in Canada), Alipay (used in China) or Swish (Used in Sweden). However, Americans still continue in their usage of paper checks. Other countries also tend to use Contactless Credit Cards. Whereas the United States still uses swipeable credit cards, or Chip and Signature credit cards.

In Non-American markets, Disney is shutting down its various TV channels due to the success of its Disney + streaming service. However, it is still maintaining them indefinitely in the United States.

Other countries are phasing out Single Use Plastic, Incandescent Light Bulbs, and Gasoline powered vehicles. But the United States isn't participating in any mandatory phaseouts for those. Plus, while not a technology, the United States also keeps using the imperial system when the rest of the world changed to metric. The same goes for the penny. The United States still keeps their 1 cent coin when in much of the world the equivalent has been phased out. America still uses the fax machine more than the rest of the world. I could go on and on.

Why is America unique in this way?

[Alben Barkley]

Hardly anyone here uses checks anymore, mostly just old people and certain business transactions. Same for faxes. And we do use digital money transfers. Our credit card systems have updated pretty rapidly to tap/contactless (personally I miss the old swipe though).

SMS is just convenient because it’s tied to your phone number and you don’t need a separate app and account. And a lot of people have unlimited plans and only/mostly text other US numbers so there’s no real reason not to use it. Most of us use other messaging apps when needed too though.

A lot of people here still have cable in addition to streaming. I imagine that’s why Disney is keeping their channels. Sometimes I just like to turn the TV to whatever is on rather than spend hours finding something to watch on-demand, so that’s one reason I keep cable at least.

As for the energy stuff and metric system, that’s probably just good old American exceptionalism/stubbornness. The penny, though? Beats me why we keep that other than for giving out exact change.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Faxes have the distinct advantage of being far less susceptible to hacking than email. Other alternatives are far less convenient. Even so, only pharmacies and financial institutions generally make use of faxes these days.  (If you need to send the IRS a document, you can either use snail mail or a fax, they don't accept emails.)

[H. Ross Peron]

Fax machine is an odd example to use, given they remain infamously common in Japan.

[Fight for Trump]

Hardly anyone here uses checks anymore, mostly just old people and certain business transactions. Same for faxes.

Lots of people and businesses use checks for many things. Part of the reason why is that the banking system in the US is so fractured that implementing widespread changes to payment systems takes an eternity. It's easy to have a unified electronic payment system when you only have a handful of banks serving the entire country, it's a lot harder when you have hundreds of banks, and not a single one even serves all 50 states.

[dead0man]

I reject the premise.  I don't think America is any more "into old stuff" than most other places.

[Del Tachi]

It's better to think of technology as somewhat discrete "generations" instead of a linear process. 

Mobile money platforms are becoming widely-adopted in the developing world because they're piggybacking off rapidly-developing cellular networks proliferating in previously unbanked areas.  That kind of need doesn't exist in the U.S., where the thick market for traditional banking services limits the need for new, mobile-based platforms. 

Same story with instant messaging vs SMS.  The U.S. had well-developed GPRS cell networks to facilitate SMS prior to the transition to LTE.  In other parts of the world, the first mobile technology ever implemented was LTE.  When LTE was rolled out in these countries it facilitated the adoption of more data-intensive Internet-based messaging platforms,  whereas there was limited need to transition in areas where SMS was already in use. 

The U.S. is not using "worse" technology.  Our technology is just more likely to be built on /upgraded from '80s and '90s "legacy" systems.  Countries that are just now experiencing their "first wave" of population-level digitization are starting from scratch, not having to incorporate or worry about old standards or platforms and the costs associated with detransitioning from them. 

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I feel like different countries are technologically modern in different ways. Web infrastructure in East Asia for example is not nearly as advanced as North America, where as payment infrastructure in NA isn't as good as Europe/Asia, etc.

[WindowPhil]

What is "web infrastructure"?

[Del Tachi]

What is "web infrastructure"?

Similar to old school telephone and telegraph systems, the modern-day Internet does actually rely on physical transmission lines (i.e., wired, fiber optic, microwave link, etc.) along with routing equipment, domain naming systems (DNS), and storage and database servers, among other critical systems.

It is one of my favorite pastimes to watch people born after the year 2000 react to the idea that Internet-connected devices cannot simply shout into the vast open as a way to receive/send data.  Vast amounts of costly, physical infrastructure is needed to make the Internet work, all of which is built and maintained by "evil" ISPs who would lose every economic incentive to do so under a "net neutrality" regime.

[freepcrusher]

modern technology sucks. Like there's too many "frills" attached. I'd rather drive a super basic 90s/00s car then one with all the keyless/touchscreen garbage. Same with computers. I'd rather have a regular desktop with typewriter keys than some macbook with chiclet keys.