5 ms·

> i think this sort of demonstrates just how far behind and backwards Japan is. It's like the country is stuck in late 90s. I've lived in Japan for the last 10

by new299 4y ago

> i think this sort of demonstrates just how far behind and backwards Japan is. It's like the country is stuck in late 90s. I've lived in Japan for the last 10 years, in no way does it seem "stuck in late 90s". And this single incident in no way demonstrates this. For some reason it's culturally acceptable to make these kinds of comments about Japan in English language forums. But I don't really understand why... Japan is no doubt very different from other countries in various respects. But it doesn't seem helpful to say essentially "we are 30 years ahead of Japan". You could if you wanted say "wow the US/UK are stuck in the 1990s" because copper broadband is still common in the US/UK. In Japan you often have 4G fiber to the home in rural locations, and 10G connections available in some locations... it's not a super helpful comment though, because countries are complex and you can't point to single issues and make general statements about the countries stage of development.

mutt2016 4y ago
Also Japan is the world leader in fax technology. Fax. Many fax companies are only viable because of the Japanese market.
- Fomite 4y ago
  Now do checkbooks and the US
  - digisign 4y ago
    US banking still stuck in the 70s and encourages rent-seeking third-parties to fill the gaps.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    How widespread is checkbook use in the US compared to the fax use in Japan? Asking because I had a bank account for almost a decade now, and I only had to use the checkbook twice, and it was pretty niche use-cases. I still have the same checkbook that I got back then, and I think I won't be able to go through the entirety of it even in multiple lifetimes. Cannot comment on how widespread the usage of fax in Japan (since I haven't lived there myself), but, from what I heard from other people, you pretty much need to have access to a fax machine.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      I haven't used Fax for a decade as a Japan local resident individual , but maybe some businesses still heavily use Fax.
      - filoleg 4y ago
        Thanks for answering this. My original comment wasn't meant as a retort, I legitimately had no idea, so I asked here. Because on reddit, one can easily get an impression that one needs a fax machine access in Japan just as much as one needs a car in the majority of the US. I kind of suspected it was a typical exaggeration, but wasn't sure.
- astrange 4y ago
  That can be useful if you feel Unicode doesn't represent what you want to say - for instance, if you can only communicate in ASCII symbols you can't invent any new symbols, you can "only" build them out of ASCII art. It's mostly because Japan is bad at web technology and APIs though. They also love gratuitous complexity; you've seen their websites and how every page is covered in stuff, but the URLs themselves are less like "youtube.com" and more like "blahblahblah.bsd.unix.nicovideo.jp/several/tech/buzzwords.jsp".
jonny_eh 4y ago
Nintendo, one of Japan's largest/most successful companies, still doesn't know how to run an online service properly. Sony's Playstation is better (but not as good as Microsoft's Xbox), but the Playstation online service is run in California.
- mttjj 4y ago
  And I could name a half-dozen US government -.gov - websites that are downright terrible with respect to usability and security practices. Since when does Nintendo represent all of Japan?
  - astrange 4y ago
    I feel like Nintendo is better than average for a Japanese company tech-wise. But it is notable how they treat the internet; they updated Animal Crossing Switch to add a few new online features, but if you try to use them you have to go through a conversation with a cute animal who basically says "to use this service you MUST agree that EVER GOING ONLINE means HACKERS will LITERALLY KILL YOU and you're only doing this because you're AN IDIOT".
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    You cannot compare governments to large gaming companies. Nintendo is known for creating amazing quality products… except when they go online. It's more fair to compare them to other gaming companies.
haswell 4y ago
While I don't think sweeping generalizations are useful, there do seem to be some categories in which Japan has seen slower modernization than others. This doesn't have to imply anything more than that, just like the prevalence of copper broadband doesn't say much more about the US than the fact that the US has some pretty antiquated broadband technology. You can argue about "coulds" and "shoulds", but it's always more complicated than that. My personal experience in this space is specifically related to "RPA / Robotic Process Automation". There is significant RPA demand (and growing) in Japan due to the significant number of old systems that have never been modernized, preventing traditional forms of API-centric automation from happening. I learned about this when consulting for an RPA product team, and was surprised that a disproportionately large percentage of their prospective customers were in the Japanese market. I won't claim that Japan is "stuck in the 90s", but there are certainly some categories in which there seems to be a cultural tendency towards caution / away from modernization for the sake of it. This isn't inherently good or bad, just interesting. It's part of what's fueling the RPA hype cycle, which is arguably just a different path to modernization than the one many other companies followed. Acknowledging this doesn't have to be disparaging. > For some reason it's culturally acceptable to make these kinds of comments about Japan in English language forums. But I don't really understand why... Japan is no doubt very different from other countries in various respects. But it doesn't seem helpful to say essentially "we are 30 years ahead of Japan". Examining the rate of progress and current state of things doesn't automatically have to imply there was intent to disparage or conclude anything negative. I realize that some people will do just that, but I'm just trying to say that not all discussion is coming from this place - I personally find the RPA thing fascinating, and it helped me better understand the nature of the problems some companies are trying to solve, and why those problems are more challenging in the Japanese market than others.
- new299 4y ago
  Right, I absolutely agree. It's interesting to compare, in fact I've written about the startup environment comparing the US to Japan before: https://41j.com/blog/2022/05/startups-and-japan/ https://41j.com/blog/2022/05/startups-and-japan/ But when people make broad statements based on single events it doesn't come off as a thoughtful comparison but something else entirely...

by new299 4y ago

mutt2016 4y ago

Also Japan is the world leader in fax technology. Fax. Many fax companies are only viable because of the Japanese market.

Fomite 4y ago
Now do checkbooks and the US
- digisign 4y ago
  US banking still stuck in the 70s and encourages rent-seeking third-parties to fill the gaps.
- filoleg 4y ago
  How widespread is checkbook use in the US compared to the fax use in Japan? Asking because I had a bank account for almost a decade now, and I only had to use the checkbook twice, and it was pretty niche use-cases. I still have the same checkbook that I got back then, and I think I won't be able to go through the entirety of it even in multiple lifetimes. Cannot comment on how widespread the usage of fax in Japan (since I haven't lived there myself), but, from what I heard from other people, you pretty much need to have access to a fax machine.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    I haven't used Fax for a decade as a Japan local resident individual , but maybe some businesses still heavily use Fax.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      Thanks for answering this. My original comment wasn't meant as a retort, I legitimately had no idea, so I asked here. Because on reddit, one can easily get an impression that one needs a fax machine access in Japan just as much as one needs a car in the majority of the US. I kind of suspected it was a typical exaggeration, but wasn't sure.
astrange 4y ago
That can be useful if you feel Unicode doesn't represent what you want to say - for instance, if you can only communicate in ASCII symbols you can't invent any new symbols, you can "only" build them out of ASCII art. It's mostly because Japan is bad at web technology and APIs though. They also love gratuitous complexity; you've seen their websites and how every page is covered in stuff, but the URLs themselves are less like "youtube.com" and more like "blahblahblah.bsd.unix.nicovideo.jp/several/tech/buzzwords.jsp".

jonny_eh 4y ago

Nintendo, one of Japan's largest/most successful companies, still doesn't know how to run an online service properly. Sony's Playstation is better (but not as good as Microsoft's Xbox), but the Playstation online service is run in California.

mttjj 4y ago
And I could name a half-dozen US government -.gov - websites that are downright terrible with respect to usability and security practices. Since when does Nintendo represent all of Japan?
- astrange 4y ago
  I feel like Nintendo is better than average for a Japanese company tech-wise. But it is notable how they treat the internet; they updated Animal Crossing Switch to add a few new online features, but if you try to use them you have to go through a conversation with a cute animal who basically says "to use this service you MUST agree that EVER GOING ONLINE means HACKERS will LITERALLY KILL YOU and you're only doing this because you're AN IDIOT".
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  You cannot compare governments to large gaming companies. Nintendo is known for creating amazing quality products… except when they go online. It's more fair to compare them to other gaming companies.

haswell 4y ago

While I don't think sweeping generalizations are useful, there do seem to be some categories in which Japan has seen slower modernization than others. This doesn't have to imply anything more than that, just like the prevalence of copper broadband doesn't say much more about the US than the fact that the US has some pretty antiquated broadband technology. You can argue about "coulds" and "shoulds", but it's always more complicated than that. My personal experience in this space is specifically related to "RPA / Robotic Process Automation". There is significant RPA demand (and growing) in Japan due to the significant number of old systems that have never been modernized, preventing traditional forms of API-centric automation from happening. I learned about this when consulting for an RPA product team, and was surprised that a disproportionately large percentage of their prospective customers were in the Japanese market. I won't claim that Japan is "stuck in the 90s", but there are certainly some categories in which there seems to be a cultural tendency towards caution / away from modernization for the sake of it. This isn't inherently good or bad, just interesting. It's part of what's fueling the RPA hype cycle, which is arguably just a different path to modernization than the one many other companies followed. Acknowledging this doesn't have to be disparaging. > For some reason it's culturally acceptable to make these kinds of comments about Japan in English language forums. But I don't really understand why... Japan is no doubt very different from other countries in various respects. But it doesn't seem helpful to say essentially "we are 30 years ahead of Japan". Examining the rate of progress and current state of things doesn't automatically have to imply there was intent to disparage or conclude anything negative. I realize that some people will do just that, but I'm just trying to say that not all discussion is coming from this place - I personally find the RPA thing fascinating, and it helped me better understand the nature of the problems some companies are trying to solve, and why those problems are more challenging in the Japanese market than others.

new299 4y ago
Right, I absolutely agree. It's interesting to compare, in fact I've written about the startup environment comparing the US to Japan before: https://41j.com/blog/2022/05/startups-and-japan/ https://41j.com/blog/2022/05/startups-and-japan/ But when people make broad statements based on single events it doesn't come off as a thoughtful comparison but something else entirely...