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It blows our hivemind that the United States doesn’t use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang).

Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America’s little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via your banking app, but come on - look how absolutely great it is to be European:

The American mind cannot comprehend this diagram

[Diagram of paper sizes as listed below]

ISO 216 A series papers formats

AO

A1

A3

A5

A7

A6

Et.

A4

Instead, Americans prostrate themselves to bizarrely-named paper types of seemingly random size: Letter, Legal, Tabloid (Ledger) and all other types of sordid nonsense. We’re not even going to include a picture because this is a family-friendly finance blog.

Source: Financial Times

  • nid_do@feddit.de
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    4 months ago

    Let’s not even start with the metric system (used everywhere) and the imperial system (used in the usa and some african countries).

      • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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        4 months ago

        Except for the UI.

        During the Apollo program they had very limited computer capacity in the capsule and lander. Computers were huge machines back then and they had to fit one in a spaceship.

        The Apollo computers used metric internally for all calculations. Anything shown to the astronauts however was in imperial, as metric was apparently too complicated for astronauts to comprehend. They had to waste precious computer capacity converting to imperial because even astronauts can’t handle anything else.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      According to wikipedia: “Some imperial measurements remain in limited use in Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and South Africa.” - so, not even “some”, just one African country, and limited use.

    • OrnateLuna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      Don’t let the UK get away with their B’s as well, they use a mix of metric and imperial. Imo that even worse bc at least america is consistent with their bs measuring system

      • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Americans aren’t consistent either. 2 liter and similar bottles (and it’s not even the same bottle, like they aren’t reusing molds or anything, it’s just an American 2 liter bottle). Sharp edges and points like on mechanical pencils are in millimeters. So are many nuts and bolts. Stuff like electricity and power are measured in metric units. Generally electronics/computer parts are in metric, the main exception that comes to mind is screen size, which even the rest of the world does in inches (LIKE WTF!?!).

        There’s plenty of examples of metric units in the daily life of an American.

      • Denjin@lemmings.world
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        4 months ago

        Most annoying is cars. We buy fuel in litres but measure our cars efficiency in miles per gallon, meaning I either have to calculate how many gallons I put in my car or how many kilometres I’ve driven to work out if I’m being more or less economical.

      • Overshoot2648@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        And Canada. I hate that map of the US and Burma. The US uses metric as it is part of customary units anyway. I also wish metric was base 12 or 16.

    • MetaCubed@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Letter paper (8.5" x 11" | 215.9mm x 279.4mm) is kinda sorta pretty close to A4 (8.27" x 11.69" | 210mm x 297mm) so without having the two next to each other, it can seem like A4 is just a funny piece of letter, and vice versa. But to answer the actual question, USA and Canada (and apparently thr phillipines???) use the “North American Standard” which is a terrifying mess in comparison to the beauty that is the ISO standard.

        • activ8r@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          The US is a former British colony, but it doesn’t stop them from doing whatever the hell they want. Utter lunatics…

          I’m sorry, I still haven’t forgiven them for the whole tea thing…

      • kakes@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Tbf, I can see the use case for some “non-standard” sizes, like Legal, where having more height to the page without the extra width might be useful for readability of long documents.

        …can’t think of an excuse for the rest, though.

      • criticon@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        I think Mexico too, or at least the paper name is “carta” and “oficio” which would translate to letter and legal (kinda)

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      4 months ago

      We have trouble fitting all our freedom on your kooky, internationally-recognized sizes

      Here’s a comparison using the most sensible units possible:

      • constantokra@lemmy.one
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        4 months ago

        11x17 is incredibly common too. Usually it is oriented landscape and z folded to get a large diagram into a document. It’s kind of irritating that the most typical large format size is 24x36, which is a different aspect ratio than 11x17, for a variety of reasons. If you’re designing something you need to know what aspect ratio to design for. Most copiers can do 11x17, and if the standard large format size was 22x34 it would be exceedingly easy for most offices to produce good working copies of large documents. Best compromise I’ve seen is when people put a logo or header on the side that can be omitted when you switch aspect ratios.

  • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Do Euro printers say PC LOAD A4?

    I think they probably do.

    I want to only briefly defend the NA system in terms of naming. I get it, I worked in printing for decades, I know how shitty it all can be. But Letter and Tabloid communicate well for something that is otherwise all the fault of press guys.

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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      4 months ago

      Well, one still could do it like how many countries transitioned to the metric system: slap the traditional names onto things that are actually now defined by the metric system, like how China’s catty, about 0.60478… kg, became 0.5kg. Just slap “Letter” onto A4.

      • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That’s going to make some driver developers very upset. And sensors in printer cartridges that can sense both A4 and Letter.

        I say we just balls the whole thing. Screen or pencils.

        • brisk@aussie.zone
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          4 months ago

          For technical purposes that need to handle both you can just disambiguate it with “Letter (new)” and “Letter (work or school)”

    • Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      yes, thats why i always was confused when i heared people online talk about pc load letter.

      i kinda assumed it was just an odd way to refer to paper that some manufacturers used

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Well, it’s 2024, so they mostly say things like “out of A4 paper - load A4 paper in tray number 3”. But yeah, they used to.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          4 months ago

          TBF, I only remember messages about “out of paper” or “all trays are empty”. Why specify paper size if the printer accepts different ones, anyway?

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      You really think people are too dumb to remember 2 letter codes that are literally printed on everything? Come on man :D

  • Sheridan@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    fun fact: the length to width ratio of ISO 216, √2:1, is the same ratio as the tritone in an equal tempered 12-tone musical scale. If you fold A4 paper in half, you get a piece of paper with the same length to width ratio as before; analogously, if you invert a tritone, you get another tritone.

  • bleistift2@feddit.de
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    4 months ago

    To be fair, A4 yields unwieldy pages that are too long to comfortably read. And when do you ever need the feature to fold an A4 sheet into A5?

    • Dekkia@this.doesnotcut.it
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      4 months ago

      And when do you ever need the feature to fold an A4 sheet into A5?

      When you want to read it more comfortably for example.

    • RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Where I’m from, it’s super common to print A4 in half size and fold them into a little booklet when you need to distribute a few pages to loads of people

    • thedarkfly@feddit.nl
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      4 months ago

      Are you american? If so, the “unwieldy and too long” is probably because you’re not used to it. I’m not used to letter-size and it seems weirdly short and unnecessarily wide but I know it’s because I’m just not used to it.

      • bleistift2@feddit.de
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        4 months ago

        I’m German. If the pages are a comfortable size, why does no publisher ever use A5 or A4 paper? To quote an answer I gave to another comment here:

        Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or 15cm×10.5cm (A5).

        Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

        Another hint that the paper format is weird is that scientific papers on A4 are always either printed in two columns or use the ninths rule for margins, i.e. 1/9 of margin on the inner and upper edges and 2/9 of margin on the outer and bottom edges, essentially throwing away almost half of the page (I’ll admit there are more economic recommendations of 1/11 or 1/13). This is to make the columns narrower to get closer to the target of 60–80 characters per line. Note also that this makes the ‘usable’ area approximately 20cm long, which is much closer to the American’s ‘Legal’ format (216mm).

        • Yamayo@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or 15cm×10.5cm (A5).

          Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

          A5 is not 15x10,5

          If A4 is 291x210 then OBVIOUSLY the next one starts with 210: 210x148.

          • bleistift2@feddit.de
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            4 months ago

            You’re right. Sorry for getting my post-7pm arithmetic skills on you. However, my point still stands. ‘Close’ is not ‘conforming’ to the standard.

        • thedarkfly@feddit.nl
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          4 months ago

          These are very valid arguments that can’t be reduced to a lack of habit. Thanks for sharing your perspective!

    • Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      almost all consumer printers are for a4.
      i had (rare) occasions where i wanted to print a picture for an a3 sized frame and was able to glue together two a4 prints.

      also, as far as im aware, books in a4 size actually consist of a3 sheets bound together in the middle. (same with other sized books)

      • bleistift2@feddit.de
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        4 months ago

        almost all consumer printers are for a4.

        I never said A4 wasn’t the standard. I said it’s not a good one.

        books in a4 size actually consist of a3 sheets bound together in the middle. (same with other sized books)

        Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or 15cm×10.5cm (A5).

        Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

    • ValiantDust@feddit.de
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      4 months ago

      I do this all the time. I print two pages on one A4 sheet (or rather four, two on each side) and then fold them so they are like a leaflet.

      That’s the main advantage of the system – you don’t have to design things differently depending on how big you want to print them. You can scale the same design to an A6 flyer or an A2 Poster.

  • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    As a math nerd, I appreciate the fractaline nature of your paper.

    But as an american, what is the practical advantage?? The sizes are so far apart, and you dont get papers with different ratios? Like for example Letter and Legal are both 8.5 inches wide, can be used in any standard cheap household printer, legal is just longer so you can fit more stuff on the page. Letter paper folds into thirds to fit snuggly in an envelope and legal folds into fourths. Other paper sizes are so niche and rarely used why does it matter if theyre a perfect mathematical ratio or not?

    • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Commercial printers will print most everything on A0 paper, but since all metric paper is doubling or halving sizes with respect to each other, they can tile a bunch of print jobs into the same A0 paper and then cut them apart, saving machine time by turning a bunch of small jobs into one big job.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      Just use multiple pages if needed?

      Who needs all their words on a single huge page like some sort of scroll?

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        It takes less paper to print 1 page of legal if that’s what your text fits on than it does 2 pages of normal paper if said text doesn’t take up all of the second piece of paper.

        When you’re printing large documents (10 or more pages let’s say) that starts to be significant savings in thickness of a stack, too.

        It’s not one huge page, it’s an extra 2 inches, or ~25% longer

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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      4 months ago

      Scalability. You can design something in A3/A4 and if you want the page in a smaller, common format, you can print it as A4/A5. This is especially handy for designing flyers, or scaling bigger stuff (like schematics, which are usually drawn on A1/A2) down to print it on household printers.

      It’s also quite convenient that pretty much anyone has a common understading of what A3/A4/A5/A6 is, when talking about areas in real life.

      Also, if you need A5 put only have A4 paper, you can cut it or even split it without scissors. That usually even gets better results, because splitting a piece of paper in two by folding is easier to do precisely that to do it whith scissors.

      Making a page longer just to “fit more stuff on it” isnwt really such a great boon, since you always need a cut-off somewhere.

      A4 can be folded into thirds as well and smaller envelopes are perfect for A6.

      • yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        yeah, this is a great thing!

        i usually make class notes recap on A4 pages, and can then print 2 A5-sized pages side by side on a single standard A4 paper, no need to rework the formatting. messing with the printer options, you can pretty easily get it to do a small booklet off of your standard A4 word document, just need to staple it together!

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        4 months ago

        It’s also quite convenient that pretty much anyone has a common understading of what A3/A4/A5/A6 is, when talking about areas in real life.

        We know “the size of a sheet of printer paper” and also that size when “folded hot dog” or “folded hamburger”.

        Y’all can’t fold ‘em fish ‘n’ chips, ever heard any food terms used to refer to length/wide folding?

    • bstix@feddit.dk
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      4 months ago

      The advantage is folding.

      When folded at the middle it becomes the next size.

      So if you have an A4 paper but don’t have the proper C4 envelope, you can fold the paper in half and put it in a C5 envelope. This is standard.

      Let’s then imagine that you don’t have a C5 envelope either, but only have the remaining Christmas card envelopes, which are C6. So you just fold your paper one more time at the middle and it’ll fit again.

      Also, the area of A0 is 1 square meter. You probably don’t nornally have an A0 paper around, but that doesn’t matter, because you can take 8 pieces of A3 or 16 pieces of A4 papers, tape them together and it’ll be A0.

      Now it isn’t actually a square meter. It’s the same area, but it’s not square. No, the length and width makes the golden fucking ratio. This might be irrelevant for a legal document, but it’s pretty neat if you want to make a nice drawing.

      Paper come in reams. Reams come in boxes. Boxes come on pallets. The paper boxes fit perfectly on a pallet in both length and width, so the layers of boxes can be placed either way in an interlocked pattern. This is mostly a ix design thing though. American paper also fit on American pallets, but without the connection through the sizes, you cannot make a pallet with mixed sizes and expect it to fit.

        • drspod@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Correct. A piece of paper with the golden (aspect) ratio would have the property that if you remove the large square (with side length equal to the shortest side of the rectangle) then the remaining rectangle has the same (golden) aspect ratio.

          The ISO216 ratio of 1:sqrt(2) has the property that if you cut the paper in half then both halves have the same aspect ratio as the original larger piece.

          People tend to confuse these two properties as they both involve the remaining rectangle having the same aspect ratio as the original piece, but the process to bisect the sheet is different.

        • s_s@lemmy.one
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          4 months ago

          You say that, but you pay a premium for these things to be generally less efficient. Why waste?

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          Well, more efficient packaging and shipping is a pretty good goal in general. Although what’s better is just…not having to ship pallets of paper around, it’s 20 fucking 24.

      • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        Well, Germans are pretty anal about standards (thankfully) and they do them right, so why not copy them?

        • onion@feddit.de
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          4 months ago

          The world would be a better place if we copied good things more often.

          Imagine all of Europe copied Dutch transportation-, German prostitution- and Portugese drug-policies

        • bort@sopuli.xyz
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          4 months ago

          so why not copy them?

          oh, I totally agree with you.

          In fact standards are made to be copied. That’s like the entire point of them.

    • Turun@feddit.de
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      4 months ago

      Which is awesome, because every number up halves the size. This, combined with the standard way that paper weights are given (e g. 80g/m2) allows you to easily calculate how much a piece of paper weights: 1 A4 80g/m2 weighs 5g (1/2^4 * 80g)

    • 100_kg_90_de_belin @feddit.it
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      4 months ago

      From their website: “We’re ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. We develop and publish International Standards.”

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Sadly, ISO in recent decade started to do bullshit. They don’t pay for standard development, they don’t employ anyone for standard development, they collect membership fees from national standards organizations, require payment to download most standards and don’t allow to copy published standards. Also they retroactively paywalled a lot of standards.

  • trolololol@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Wait a second if the bank app can’t transfer money how do they do it? Just barter with guns? Are the bullets like coins?

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Isn’t sepa the eu system?

        Sorry but bank transfers are not 1st world exclusive, it’s common place in 3rd world as well.

    • s_s@lemmy.one
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      4 months ago

      We have a fee-free bank-to-bank transfer system that is based on pre-digital technology that takes 2-3 business days. We often call it “direct deposit” or automated clearing house (ACH). It’s often used for payroll and paying bills.

      Now, we could probably make this payment system instantaneous relatively effortlessly (and thus useful for regular in-store purchases), but the banks lobby against this so they can continue to charge us fees and interest to over-use credit cards. (Interestingly enough, credit and debit cards all use direct deposit on the backend to actual transfer funds between parties).

      This is all fine and dandy for most people because they simply can’t imagine doing things a more consumer-friendly way.

      • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        We have a fee-free bank-to-bank transfer system that is based on pre-digital technology that takes 2-3 business days. We often call it “direct deposit” or automated clearing house (ACH).

        Ah, right, kinda like SEPA Credit Transfer. You do need a persons IBAN which is a bit long, but their name is validated so you usually send it to the right person.

        Now, we could probably make this payment system instantaneous relatively effortlessly

        Ooh, cool, kinda like SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, which transfers money within ten seconds to bank accounts using the above mentioned number.

        This is all fine and dandy for most people because they simply can’t imagine doing things a more consumer-friendly way

        And that’s why, in the Netherlands, Tikkie took the country by storm. It is an app that allows you to use iDEAL (a web-based payment system, soon rolled out in Germany and Belgium as Vero) to send money to friends. Usually takes one pin and three taps to send it, and have it instantly appear on the account of the recipient.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 months ago

        I imagine it has also something to do with safety? Like, if it was instantaneous, that means you can do damage instantaneously, or a hacker might have fewer hurdles to go through.

      • beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        Your comment is all true, except - we CAN all imagine it, but as you pointed out, our unchecked hyper capitalism prevents it

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Wtf?

        Also are banks just dumb or what? Has it crossed their greedy minds that they also can charge to make transfers?

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          What’s pictured there is when people use Venmo to pay for something instead of just transferring money between friends. The fee is paid by the seller. Banks already do this for traditional sellers in the US which is why you’ll see signs asking for cash instead of cards.

          And tax evasion. But I don’t care as long as the tamales are good.

          • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Do Visa, Mastercard, etc, not charge transaction fees in Europe? The only place I’ve been where there’s no transaction fees paid by the vendor is China.

            • trolololol@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I’m in Australia and it’s a mix. Some places add the surcharge to the bill and can use cc for as low as$1, some don’t and don’t accept payments that’s less than 2 people’s meals ( and also don’t accept split bills).

              But it’s very very hard to find a place that’s cash only. It comes to mind empanadas, so I got a laugh at the other reply about tamales.

            • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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              4 months ago

              I owned a business in Europe. My bank charged me a pretty low monthly flat fee for card charges, so I would take cards for any amount.

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Venmo, Zelle, Cash app, etc.

      My last 3 banks all had ACH transfers in-app, too, so idk what they’re smoking

      • cum@lemmy.cafe
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        4 months ago

        Yeah they’re just making shit up, and it’s anti American so Lemmy assumes it’s true.

        • twinnie@feddit.uk
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          4 months ago

          3 days? UK here, the other day I transferred money to my wife (different bank) while she was handing her card to the cashier at the supermarket. It took about 1 second.

          Surely there’s some challenger bank letting you do modern stuff?

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          I assume it’s ACH, I’m at work and my job includes doing ACH work so that just kinda typed out.

          It has me put their routing and account number in, then took anywhere from 5 minutes to a day to clear, p sure that’s ACH

    • yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      i just assumed people used 3rd party services for ease of use or faster transactions, seems so wild that you’d not be able to send money using your bank to me

      here it takes 1-2 business day for a free wire transfer from one bank account to another, and you can do it in your banking app or on the bank’s website. you just need to authenticate with your online pin code. you can also pay 1€ to get a <24h transfer

      it’s honestly much better than using a third party service, since pretty much everyone has a bank account, and pays using a card tied to that account directly

      • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Idk what all this talk is about - we have wire transfers in the US. I don’t need a third party to do it either, it’s exactly as you’ve described, I can do one through the bank’s app or on their website, and it’s free. It’s not as common though since the information required is: Name of the recipient’s account exactly as it is, account #, routing #, and exact name of the bank tied to the routing #. You can save that info though to make it easier to transfer the next time around - it’s very useful for close family and friends.

        • zarenki@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          and it’s free

          This is very uncommon in the US. Most major banks (I’m not aware of any exceptions) charge a fee for each outgoing wire transfer, usually $25-$30. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, and PNC for just a few examples I’m aware of, plus every credit union that has local branches in my area. Some of those banks even add a second fee at the recipient’s side for incoming wire transfer.

          They often encourage customers to rely on third party services like Zelle instead for small transfers to friends and family. Many banks’ sites/apps can also handle transfers between two accounts that both belong to the same bank for free too.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Brasil enters the chat

        No fees transfer takes seconds, as long as it’s not international. People use it for buying groceries, clothes or paying for whatever they buy in the middle of the street from other people who are not businesses. Confirmation of payment from receivers end is immediate with a push on your phone.

        All sellers can produce a QR code including receiver address and price to be payed. All bank apps scan and pay seamlessly.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Russia enters the chat.

          Same. It is done with National Payment System of Cards law, which people usually call “MIR cards”. It started as replacement system for visa and mastercard, but evolved into System of Fast Payments/Transactions.

          You can use it in three ways: enter recepient’s card number, enter recepient’s phone number or use qr code.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        In Canada we have Interact e-Transfer. Basically all the banks colluded to make a system that allows for instant money transfer between banks using email or phone number as the recipient identifier, along with options for comments and security questions.

        I felt like this was a huge step up compared to all the hoops and third party apps I had to use in Europe.

        • yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          huh, yeah, i heard of similar things in the US

          here it seems to be worked out through legislation though, rather than private deals, but that means it’s much slower to get set in place

    • JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Actually, a lot of banking apps can be used to transfer money now, it’s just done through Zelle. We can also do a bank transfer using the routing and account number (at least with my banking app) but that I think takes longer.