It’s the only way I’ve ever seen movie tickets sold outside of North America anywhere.

You can find both kinds, in europe especially the cut is very clear, commercial cinemas ALWAYS have assigned sitting. The kind you see at malls and have the Hollywood rotation of marvel shit movies.

Then you have smaller cinemas with indie movies, european movie festival rotation, etc, and many of those in at least 4 or 5 countries in Europe I can confirm do NOT have assigned sitting.