But clearly you guys have less freedom than Americans, because that's what American TV told me.

A lot of US banks also have that as an option, people opt in to "overdraft protection" anyway. The banks make it sound like a safer option, instead of the predatory practice it normally is.

I don't see the issue with overdrafting, just why the hell do you guys have a flat fee for it instead of just exorbitant interest rates? Even 50% interest doesn't cost much if it's for overdrafting a few hundred for 3 days because i lost track of how much money is in my main bank account.

The one time overdrafting cost me anything close to significant money is when I thought my account had overdrafting allowed but then my bank reverted a transaction because apparently all previous instances were just them "tolerating it". My PC died and I wanted a new one asap, but the money for that was on my savings account, so I figured I'd just go to like -300 for 1 or 2 days. Nope, bank takes the money back, amazon makes me pay like 20€ of fees, and I have to deal with the bureaucracy of it all. At least I got my PC parts quickly anyway.

Overdrafting with a sane system is just even more expensive credit card debt.

people get by just fine

debatable but otherwise the point stands.