[germinalphrase]

In the US, my experience with this style of rope structure is that the ropes are actually steep cables encases in fiber or nylon rope sheathing. There is no stretch, so landings are immediate (unlike falling onto an actual rope net).

[schoen]

I think I've seen that too; why are they made this way? Durability? Supporting more people's weight at once?

[germinalphrase]

I was told that the cables reduce the potential for stretch over time, and this is important to maintain safety tolerances (“space x cannot exceed size y because otherwise a child can…”)

[mschuster91]

Same shit as some commercial residential developments here in Germany have: wrong metrics.

Like, when the builders' metric is "must last for 20 years at minimal maintenance effort and legal risk", you get radically different results (barely fulfilling the legal definition of playground, no one uses it) than if the metric is "out of the X potential users in the 200m surrounding the playground, Y% use it frequently". The latter costs more money in construction and upkeep.