Comment by manxman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by manxman | Hacker News Reader

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It’s interesting you say this. There’s something cultural in Japan that optimises the hell out of something even after it becomes obsolete everywhere else and then cannot let go of that investment. Or perhaps the people involved in the process stop questioning whether other processes may be better and then simply iterate upon the path they are already on?

Take the buses: They have the most amazing automated machines for giving you change from banknotes and then collecting/calculating the correct fare payment in coins. Similar machines exist in some retailers. Try to pay by card and you won’t travel very far.

Much of the rest of the world moved to contactless card payments over a decade ago

I sort of sympathise on some levels - the investments they made in these ”refinements” are not trivial. I suspect Japan will stick to its legacy processes. IMHO It will succeed as a niche curiosity that outsiders find interesting as the world passes it by.

I have to wonder if such curiosity tourism will ever be enough to cover its economic needs.

I don't think this is a isolated case for Japan but rather an unintended downside of being a pioneering adopter of an innovative technology wave.

For instance, Credit Cards are ubiquitous in the US. In India (and am guessing China too) credit cards were and even nor limited to a higher income niche while mobile payments via QR codes (UPI, Wechat) became more prevalent. And I think from an experience and convenience stand point they are better than Credit Cards.

Similarly in legacy banking, a large part of the tech infrastructure am guessing still runs on mainframes as banks were early adopters. Applications are still being written in COBOL.

Large Organizations / Governments benefit from tech adoption but are also slower and more difficult to migrate a new technology when it appears.

Much of the rest of the world moved to contactless card payments over a decade ago

While I fully agree with your summary, I think there's an opportunity benefit as well as an opportunity cost, in that they are not turning the country into a digital panopticon for the citizenry. Considering the more collectivist social ethos (compared to many western countries), Japan is in many ways a privacy-maximizing society.

Sure Japan has some weird anachronisms but everyone pays for buses and trains using contactless transit cards, just like most rich countries. And lots of people just use Apple Wallet on their phone or watch.

Likewise, there are many different competing payment systems in daily use (including Western-style contactless card payments and Chinese-style QR code mobile payment networks). There are so many options that cash registers normally have a little poster next to them informing you which of the payment networks are available (it’s often more than 20).

Cash is still more widely used than in day Sweden, China or Australia. But if I were to guess I’d say it’s because there are too many available alternatives (no single dominant network) rather than too few.

International contactless cards don’t work period - you need SUICA or PASMO for the metro. Buses outside of the cities are cash based.

I travelled in Hokkaido, Rishiri, Okinawa, Ishigaki, Iriomote etc. They simply did not take cards at all. Also true on small private train lines such as Kanazawa to Uchinada.

By end of 2024 this won’t be the case for Tokyo.

You're not wrong, but this is also the country that invented the Felica standard (NFC-F)[0] because regular NFC the rest of the world was using wasn't fast enough for the train station turnstiles.

0: https://www.sony.net/Products/felica/NFC/relation.html

Love your comment but I'm not entirely convinced that it is necessarily a phenomena unique to Japan culture.

I mean, isn't it the same as the old saying "if it ain't broke..."?

Using your example and this is just a guess, at the time Japan implemented those automated machines there was probably a big push to make the switch as manual handling of change had become a source of stress.

The rest of the world didn't make that jump until cards were a thing, product of a similar experience.

But by that time in Japan, where the problem was already "solved", switching to cards was no longer that big of a jump and so there was no incentive (or at least not enough) to worth the effort in changing technologies.

From what I saw of the mindset I don’t think it works that way there.

In London “oyster” contactless cards replaced cash/paper tickets for buses and the tube. It was then incremented to contactless bank payment cards as soon as the banks added such cards. This seemed largely to be an internal systems upgrade leveraging existing infrastructure.

Japanese suica/pasmo contactless payment cards are more like oyster and need topping up. Their bank payment cards are incompatible with international contactless systems. International contactless cards don’t work locally on many payment terminals.

Many retailers that support both local and international cards literally have mutiple contactless terminals. Some manage to take a contactless payment but then print a bit of paper for you to sign (total WTF moment!!).

But this post was originally about trees. And what I was getting at was the culture reveres preserving and optimising paths after those paths stop making sense or become obsolete. Some of that is very cool to see but I’m not sure if it’s going to be sustainable given their decline.

This is slightly similar to how some countries skipped landline phones and jumped straight to mobile networks.

It makes sense - landlines are on the way out and require a much bigger initial investment to lay lines. Cell networks only require building towers and their backhaul networks.

Countries invest in infrastreucture at differerent times. Time of the ages.

There are downsides to cards, tracking a card with your name makes surveillance too easy compared to cash.

I don't know how true it is, but I have heard that many large Japanese companies still make significant use of fax machines. This surprised me because of how advanced Japanese industrial automation is.

The only example that I think makes sense is the Japanese intelligence services still using paper records. In this context it is advantageous since paper filing cabinets cannot be hacked remotely.

Germany does as well

I lived in another country last year and had to contact the German embassy. They told me to write down my problem and fax it to them

How did they tell you? Surely not email? Not that it really makes any difference, it would just feel more stupid and painful to me if I were you if it were!

I called them and explained my problem, hoping to get help via phone. But the employee told me they are on lunch break and please send a fax

the fax axis powers.

how you didn't jump straight to "faxis" is beyond me

because of the rhythm. both German and Japanese language _love_ a staccato of fricatives.

‘The West’ also still heavily uses quite outdated tech for the very basis of their banking systems, so I don’t think it’s unique. Though one might argue that is more of a backwards compatibility thing.

It was just because local bus operators are in poverty to install new system. Now IC payment like Suica, original card, or Visa are being introduced for local buses.

You're just so much better and smarter and more knowing and above the Japanese! With a 2 week visit was it? Did you manage to keep your nose out of your anus for any portion of that?

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