Beijing has been slow to address the visa and e-payment woes of foreign travellers, and some officials remain complacent about the exodus of foreign investment
I just came back from China last month and ran into the exact same problem with Lucky Coffee. Also, I found it very frustrating that there didn’t seem to be any translation options in the app used to order coffee (or at least none that I could find) or even in other common apps (Gaode, Didi). I can only imagine how difficult China would be to navigate for tourists who know no Chinese at all.
There is little point to associate the victims of such „trend“ with „older … generation and foreign tourists“. It is fundamentally not an issue with capability, but with free will and equal opportunity. Regardless of age or language abilities, whether to go cashless should be a decision and if significant majority of the businesses in a society have the freedom to exclude a part of the customers who make legitimate decision to make order at site or pay with paper money, the freedom of this civil society has become questionable.
Do not grasp, and/or do not care.
I just came back from China last month and ran into the exact same problem with Lucky Coffee. Also, I found it very frustrating that there didn’t seem to be any translation options in the app used to order coffee (or at least none that I could find) or even in other common apps (Gaode, Didi). I can only imagine how difficult China would be to navigate for tourists who know no Chinese at all.
There is little point to associate the victims of such „trend“ with „older … generation and foreign tourists“. It is fundamentally not an issue with capability, but with free will and equal opportunity. Regardless of age or language abilities, whether to go cashless should be a decision and if significant majority of the businesses in a society have the freedom to exclude a part of the customers who make legitimate decision to make order at site or pay with paper money, the freedom of this civil society has become questionable.