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Blaming it to the keiretsu is too simplistic. Here other factors that in my experience (living, studying & working) in Japan contribute: - Graduates don't appl
by kippel 2y ago
Blaming it to the keiretsu is too simplistic. Here other factors that in my experience (living, studying & working) in Japan contribute:
- Graduates don't apply to a job, but to a company. The company decides where to place then. The first years are generally a rotation between departments until it is decided where to allocate them. This means that they will be often misplaced in positions for which they don't have the necessary background nor motivation to learn or contribute because in 6 months they'll be somewhere else.
- It is not uncommon for developers not to have a CS or coding background. They learn on the job how to "program" but lack best practices, etc. and figure out things as they go.
- Standing out is frown upon
- People who are good at their jobs are generally rewarded with more work. One can know who the manager's favourite is by who busy the person is. At the end, the good ones end up burned out, over-stressed and brain death.
- Looking busy or hard working is more important than the outcome.
- Combine the above, and there is no point to do a good job: There is no reward other than more pressure to deliver but on the other hand, as long as you look busy, not delivering is not "punished". Clear what option most people will take.
- As already commented, decisions are top down and often very conservative replicating old methods digitally.
- Many customer facing products will try to cover as many cases as possible to avoid complains, perceived discrimination or causing trouble, for example. This results in over bloated software, websites, flyers full of information, etc.
- vishnugupta 2y agoFrom what you wrote none of the factors seem to be specific to software/CS. But then Japan is quite well known when it comes to physical products. So I wonder what’s it about software the Japanese culture inhibits.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoI don’t think anything about Japanese culture or generalizations like that tell you much about this. Physical products: you are buying them for their software. That’s why you choose an iPhone over an Android phone. They’re all rectangles with screens. When Sonos screwed up its app it was a crisis because: people pay for the software not the hardware. Is this true about cars? EV design is converging. It will be. CarPlay controversy is a great example: people choose cars that support it. Vanmoofs have a lot of hardware problems but the reason people bought them was software (like location tracking and e-Shifting). So “well known when it comes to physical products,” that may be, but all products are software products. “Software is eating the world” was all about like, replacing human labor or whatever, disruption. Marc Andreesen thinks he was saying something forward looking when it was all backward looking. The story is differentiation and customer choices. Truly forward looking. But are Japanese firms incapable of that? Of course not. Once there was a guy on here who said he had the brilliant idea of using a web browser to make an airplane UI. Listen brother, everybody knows how to write good software. It’s a business strategy not execution problem.
- nemomarx 2y agoI mean outside of electronics this isn't really true? A hammer, a comic book, an umbrella you don't buy for software at all.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoThe reason you are choosing a particular hammer, comic book or umbrella on Amazon is because of mastery of marketing, logistics, and design software. It sounds ridiculous but what is a software-enabled hammer? A construction robot could be a pretty big deal no? That might not exist today. You might still be buying hammers but everyone will want construction robots.
- bluGill 2y agoSome things go obsolete, some remain useful even when they are mostly replaced. All carpenters carry a hammer even though nail guns are used for almost all nails. By contrast I know a professional photography who uses film cameras as decoration - they still work but he doesn't own film for them (he also has a second job because professional photographer isn't nearly the job it used to be before everyone had a camera on them)
- connicpu 2y agoEven some electronics, I don't expect anything beyond a basic BMS (which has the logic baked into the IC) is inside my battery powered drill. All it has is a direction selector switch and a trigger.
- dowager_dan99 2y agoeven with electronics. Apple didn't achieve their dominance because of their software - any of the times. The physical products were continually refined and the software used as a lever to help them perfect the experience. When they focused on making the software "perfect" it almost destroyed the company.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
- itronitron 2y agoPrecision manufacturing, such as for ballpoint pens and Gundam figures, will more readily show defects, so that might be the reason.
- kippel 2y agoYou are right, it is not specific to software, just wanted to add more context and also, because I don't know the answer and I believe there are multiple factors, but my two cents: a mix of history and culture. By the time software came around, Japan already had a well stablished manufacturing industry that had a reputation for quality (this wasn't always the case). Software was something totally new and wasn't considered important, why? perhaps management didn't understand it or didn't know how to handle it and did nothing. The above made a career in software not very attractive compared to other industries. Since then, companies struggle to get good developers, who can move to more attractive sectors or countries than trying to change things within Japan with its rigid hierarchy. How things move in Japan is generally by someone breaking the status quo and the rest following if it is a success. That was the case with Toyota in manufacturing for example. For software it hasn't happened. Another problem IMHO is that code is invisible to users. If the app works, people don't care if the code is beautifully made or not, and without consumer pressure, management doesn't care either. Compare that with the complains they'll get if a physical object had the sightless defect. Finally, there is a higher entry barrier for physical products than software. Any teenager can build an app in her bedroom, it is a different story to develop a bullet train. Inefficiencies and slow decision processes in manufacturing are less obvious than in tech (though manufacturing industries in Japan are struggling as well because of this), and Japan simply isn't competitive in this area, making it less attractive to invest. And perhaps, the most important: People got used to it and don't have higher expectations.