The pen thing for signatures is a US phenomenon. Where we have debit cards (contactless and without the need for a PIN even for small amounts in a growing number of countries), they are stuck with a very slow, reluctant transition to PIN-and-chip; something the rest of us did in the late nineties.

The upside is that the US is at this point better at holding on to the principle of being able to use cash everywhere in addition to other payment options; something that is starting to become a problem in Europe.

Most places running newer POS terminals have switched to digital signatures on the screen, which is much nicer... but some bars (especially nightclubs where they don't want bright POS terminal screen shining in your face) still do paper receipts with pen signature, yeah.

Outside of nightlife and restaurants, I almost never deal with paper signatures anymore. Pretty much all retail, etc, does digital signatures and digital receipts, paper receipt upon request.

Its still pretty backwards compared to how most things credit card related work in Europe, but gets the job done and is indeed gradually getting better over here (and, as some of the other posts have mentioned, the saving grace if you don't want to deal with any of this is that cash is almost universally accepted).