Joe thinks about it and comes to a conclusion that if he loses his wallet abroad, he'll still be able to buy a ticket home by simply getting scanned at the airport. Pretty convenient if you ask me.
It has always been about convenience. Cash is more difficult to carry around, split in multiple amounts, there's no history of transactions recorded if you need it, easier to lose and get stolen. It appears to be the case that these inconveniences justify the spending of billions of dollars and euros in transaction fees annually.
If they start blocking people for their social media activity, fining them for what they write online, there's going to be riots, unless they choose to deal with it like China did and roll out the tanks.
The West is not China. There may be similar treatment as to Chinese, but we fundamentally differ in culture.
CBDC is without doubt coming to Europe, though. This is not a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory is that it'll be used to pause the economic activity of people based on their social media, or political preferences, which again might be attempted to happen, but I struggle to imagine the Chinese model enforced to Europeans.