[dwb]

I was born in England, live in London, have a Dutch partner, and also travel to the Netherlands often enough. I agree completely. They have their problems too (from the political to having to tap out on buses), but the overall level of quality and care seems rather higher. The sense of decline and disengagement is strong too. Difficult to say much objective about that (though keep an eye on the turnout in the upcoming general election), but I see it from all political persuasions.

[makingstuffs]

Yeah I agree that it is hard to be entirely objective on something as subjective as sense of decline — lord knows I’ve spoken to Dutch natives whom hold an opinion that the country is ‘not what it used to be’. I do get a feel that people, generally, seem less embroiled in a race to the bottom than we do in the UK.

It feels that people in UK have been ground down to a point of ‘ah well, it’s all f*cked and always will be now’ and, as such, people accept things like a £5k bicycle failing multiple times within 2 years.

[namaria]

Why is tapping out on the bus a bad thing? It means you can pay for distance traveled instead of a flat fee.

[dwb]

It was sort of a joke, I’m mostly just not used to it - but also apparently it’s a pain if you forget to do it.

[janandonly]

You have to log into a website and enter your point of exit. That way whatever was subtracted form your credit can be returned to you.

It’s the same for train travel. It is an honor system because there is no way to check if that really was your exit or not.

[Symbiote]

In London it is a slight benefit to poor people with lots of time, as you can travel a long way (sometimes) on a single bus.

But the Netherlands has a country-wide system (unlike Britain) so it has this compromise of tapping out.