[looki]

I was actually almost happy when the other day, my train in the Netherlands got cancelled and I had to wait a full hour for another connection. Good to know you're human as well.

Self checkouts are definitely a thing here, although typically not in small grocery stores. Larger stores like Edeka, Real, Ikea, Hornbach have them where I live. I'm aware that even the small stores like AH in city centers have them in NL though, which is nice.

[lucb1e]

Which city do you live in, if I may ask? I don't think I've seen a self checkout anywhere* though I haven't been to most supermarkets in any given city (of course) so I might totally have missed them by chance.

* I've been to supermarkets in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Stuttgart (and many smaller cities/towns/villages of course, but I guess there it would be less likely).

> Good to know you're human as well.

:-) You should ask a random Dutch(wo)man for their opinion of the trains' punctuality though. We totally envy Japan.

The statistics are alright though and it has improved quite a bit in the last decade (much like how O2 is seen as having a terribly mobile net by literally every German person, but after the fusion with E+ a few years ago it is statistically fine, and indeed, I often have full bandwidth when my colleagues on Telekom are complaining). Public perception is a fine art!

[looki]

I live in the Ruhr area. They're definitely still relatively rare (I haven't seen them in the most common stores like Aldi, Rewe), so it's not too surprising you've missed them. I guess that will change within the next couple of years.

I have a pretty good experiencce with O2 also, but I'm aware that it can be completely unusable in rural areas. Luckily, I don't really leave the city boundaries much.

EDIT: I just remembered, I used to live in Karlsruhe, and the Real there also had a self-checkout. I haven't lived there since 2016, for what it's worth. Yeah, not sure why it's confined to larger stores. Perhaps not popular enough to warrant sacrificing cash register real estate in smaller stores for it. Germans don't like new things after all.

[lucb1e]

Ruhr area is not very far from here. I will be on the lookout for self-registers next time I'm in Essen!

As for mobile networks, I think all of them are frequently unusable in rural areas. Between Aachen and Cologne (I most frequently travel there), which is not a quiet route, I think at least half the time there is 2G or nothing at all. I should measure that some time. My work phone (Telekom) doesn't have better reception than mine (Dutch network using O2). Without measuring, I would actually estimate that O2 is the better deal around here.

[merb]

actually every ikea in germany has self-checkouts.