Sam 🇳🇱🇬🇧
I believe the situation in the Netherlands might not be any less "seriously wrong" and "frustrating", at least for foreigners.
From what I can gather, NL has Maestro (and now V PAY) acceptance virtually "everywhere". VISA and Mastercard, let alone AMEX acceptance though seems to be spotty at best. That is probably due to the uniquely low debit interchange fees in the Netherlands. The largest supermarkt chain, Albert Heijn, does AFAIK still not accept credit cards.
With expanded credit card acceptance in Germany in recent years, Mastercard/VISA acceptance the Netherlands seem to lag Germany's by now.
Keeping in mind that banks in many (most?) countries† in Europe have moved away from issuing Maestro or V PAY in favor of Mastercard or VISA even as standard debit card on a basic bank account, their customers† will often not be able to use their bank cards for POS payments in the Netherlands.
† Outside German-/Dutch-speaking countries, which are still a stronghold of Maestro/V PAY issuance, so it's not Germans having that particular problem in NL.
