I understand why Germany, a poorer country which was late to electronic payments, wouldn't do this; I don't understand the hostility to it. But then, I'm American, we've been doing this longer than you've been alive.
You mean payments between banks that take two to three days within the country instead of a regulated maximum of 15 seconds across borders?
It's a shame you're so salty that the rest of the world has far overtaken the US. You may have been doing it "longer", but you've absolutely failed to iterate and are still stuck with obsolete technology that's rife with fraud, for which a more appropriate feeling than saltiness is shame.
But having a clunky thing at home you stick your debit card in is okay too! I guess.
What a security nightmare.
I really haven't heard of much trouble caused by these systems - of course, they require magnetic stripes in general, which are a massive attack vector, but the bar use case specifically doesn't seem to cause additional issues that I'm aware of. There are so many lower-tech and easy ways to steal magnetic track data, like skimmers, that I don't think compromising bar-back point of sale systems is a particularly high priority for most criminals.
Anyway, this is probably just a small snapshot in time regardless, since once swiped-card transactions finally go away US bars will have to switch to the mobile terminal pay-as-you-go method anyway.
Now you get it.
LOL. It's convenient for bar owners. Patrons doesn't give a shit about that.