Apple Pay was great from day one - depending on where you lived. In the UK contactless payments are the standard and already were when Apple Pay was released meaning I could use it in 99% of retailers, even small ones.
As I understand it, the US didn’t really have contactless payment pre-apple/google pay _at all_, so it’d naturally be a harder transition than in places where it was already rolled out.
Even today, you’ll occasionally see terminals in Europe which don’t actually support Apple Pay as such; it’ll work, because it acts like a normal contactless card, but only up to 50 euro, because the terminal doesn’t know it’s authenticated.
Sounds like you're aware of why it's a uniquely American thing.
You forgot to mention companies that did accept it but stopped after they implemented their own payment system (which again only applies to American branches of their stores).
