Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff

haahr writes "Good article about why the coolest electronics products are available first in Japan and may never make it to the U.S., in Slate."

Comments

Re:Japan doesn't have a monopoly on 'cool stuff'

[SpatchMonkey]

The mobile phone network in Europe is also a lot better. Roaming, btw, just means that when you go to a different country with your phone it allows you to use the foreign networks automatically (who then bill your home provider) - actually a good feature.
It seems to me that cellphones in America are so patchy is that they have been so slow to move to GSM. But then, they have a much larger area to organise. Also, analogue is more popular and local calls are cheap/free.
Hmm, this is a bit offtopic as the discussion is about Japan. Sorry.

It's funny you should mention that...

[rcs1000]

Not, of course, your maths: 2002 - 1991 (ignoring a few non-recession years in the middle) = 11 years...

But: I remember in 1990 discussing with an American friend of mine (I'm British) that an Economist article said that Japanese productivity growth was significantly lower than in the US.

He laughed, and told me (basically) that the US was doomed and that we would all be speaking Japanese in 10 years.

Oh how times change...

Re:It's funny you should mention that...

[Squeeze Truck]

Oh how times change...

Indeed they do. With all it's problems, I think the basics of the Japanese economy are still sound. Japan still has a better work ethic, better education and higher levels of personal scruples than the US. Plus it still has strong steel, electronics, and manufacturing capacity. And don't forget that it lends far more money than it borrows.

So what if Japan can't survive forever as an exporter of electronic bric-brac to the US? I still think in the long term that it's in better shape than the US. Maybe a powerful China can be our new main trading partner.

Re:Hence they've been in a recession for 20 years.

[Squeeze Truck]

For every Japanese company you can find who have an interest in copying American business practices, I bet I can find ten who think American practices are antisocial and, in the end, suicidal.

Roaming

[SgtChaireBourne]

Roaming may have been one of the keys to cell phone adoption in Europe -- the whole country is your zone. No point in buying a cell phone unless you can use it while travelling. Otherwise, you'll be near your regular phone, plus maybe a wireless handset. In the U.S. Chicago, IL and Madison, WI are probably in different roaming areas. Shoot, maybe even San Diego, CA and San Francisco, CA are in different zones. Odds are it's cheaper there with a pager and a payphone. Also, the screwed up choice of frequencies in the U.S. means that European and Japanese manufacturers have to make a special model just for the U.S.

Perhaps Japanese cell phones work in all of Japan and perhaps even at the same price. Japanese companies are pretty good about responding to what sells, so this would make sense.