Comment by greybox

2 days ago

> Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US?

The EU

> Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?

No:

> (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english)

>I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained

I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more of a generational thing than a cultural difference between American and EU citizens.

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greybox

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danielbln  2 days ago

German Millennial here, I'd much prefer an app to having to call someone. I hate calling anyone, and I know I'm not alone there. Let me text or use an app and I'm in.

  • greybox  2 days ago

    I am a millennial and maybe I am just in the Minority of Millennials that quite likes talking to people even when It's contractual.

    I walk to restaurants if I can to avoid using Wolt for instance.

    Then again, I appreciate that AI is probably a better driver than 60% of taxi drivers.

  • Henchman21  2 days ago

    Can I ask why you hate calling? I also know you’re not alone— many people I know are the same but I can’t seem to get a reasonable answer to why that doesn’t seem to boil down to social anxiety.

    • nemomarx  2 days ago

      It's also a little disorganized - on an app I can see all the options and my choices when ordering food for example, over the phone you have to keep that in your head or write it down before hand which is higher effort. This goes for other things too, like navigating a phone tree and explaining your situation to someone or ordering a taxi and being sure you have your location and the destination correct, etc

    • Zak  2 days ago

      I'm not who you asked, but social anxiety seems like a good reason to have this preference.

      I also dislike ordering food by phone for practical reasons. Call quality might be bad, person's accent might be hard for me to understand, I might be hard for them to understand, the chance an error will go unnoticed even if they read back the order is higher than a website where I can read it myself, and in many cases I have to give a credit card number to a person, which has a higher probability of leading to fraud than most online payments in 2025.

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