You can go from one side of The Netherlands from the other for about €20 on the train and you can have unlimited train travel for €350 a month (and considerably less for a given route).

Yes, but we're kind of unique in our standardized national public transport system. Undoubtedly our small size as a country helps there.

Well, Ireland is just 6.5 million people, not exactly a large country, and I think Germany's DB is more or less similar to the Dutch NS?

I lived in the UK for a while, and things are really complex there with a patchwork of private companies. Either way, I stopped complaining about the Dutch trains very shortly after moving there :-)

The thing is the UK trains used to be much better. Then the Tories privatized them and we ended up with this mess of private companies owning different regions of the country. Apparently that leads to competition because if taking a train from the City to Luton is too expensive they can just take a train from Leeds to Glasgow.

We have one transport card that works for all public transport providers. You cannot book trains in advance - all distances have a fixed price (not counting international trains). In many other countries there are regional commuter trains like that, but with national trains the prices vary on how early you book, like with planes.