[gib444]

Given coffee shops etc hire psychologists to select annoying music to optimise revenue, I wouldn't rule out bad acoustics as a choice (particularly larger chains)

Though with bars and restaurants being brutally hard to survive and turn a decent profit, I would mostly attribute it to just cutting costs

[olelele]

I spent most of my adult life in Berlin and most places here it’s due to 100% ignorance. Tearing out everything and putting in euro pallets as furniture + packing the place w drunk ppl was the general modus operandi. Acoustic treatment doesn’t have to be expensive.