[lmm]

> Why should Japan have excelled here vs any other country?

30 years ago Japan was world-beating, today it isn't. You could say that to not be excelling is the norm, and the causes of success 30 years ago are the things to be investigated; nevertheless, this feels like a decline.

> I watched several large bitcoin startups um, startup. I saw what must have been 11 different payment system appear (PayPay, D-Pay, ...), just as 2 categories.

Japan has dozens of payment systems but how many of them are competing outside Japan? How many are even trying? NFC-F is still technologically better than Visa/Mastercard contactless, but I bet the latter is going to win out, because it's the international standard; even in Japan new cards come with that.

[asiachick]

Japan was world-beating in what categories 30 years ago (1993)? It wasn't computers. Cars? Toyota is still #1 in the world. What else? Phones (no).

> Japan has dozens of payment systems but how many of them are competing outside Japan?

Why would they? Japanese companies speak Japanese and make things for Japanese. The exceptions are just that, exceptions.

And to be clear, my point is why is Japan called out for this? Where's the article that Germany is a failure because they don't have a global payments competitor? How about France? India? China? Why is only Japan that gets this special "you're a failing country because you don't have a global payment offering"

[lmm]

> Japan was world-beating in what categories 30 years ago (1993)? It wasn't computers.... Phones (no).

Japan was top or near-top in most of the portable electronics markets that mattered at the time, the ancestors of today's phones. Digital cameras, portable music players, PDAs/personal organizers, video game consoles, heck even the pedometer. So why are they barely competitive on the portable electronics of today (phones, but also smartwatches and the like)?

> Cars? Toyota is still #1 in the world. What else?

One of the big worries about the Japanese economy is a sense that Toyota has massively missed the bus on electric cars. Especially after building the first really successful hybrid, how have they fallen so far behind the likes of GM or Mercedes/BMW/Audi? Why are they still pushing hydrogen decades after everyone else has realised it's a failure?

> Why would they? Japanese companies speak Japanese and make things for Japanese. The exceptions are just that, exceptions.

It didn't feel like it 30 years ago. And for internet businesses, it's not going to be good enough.

> And to be clear, my point is why is Japan called out for this? Where's the article that Germany is a failure because they don't have a global payments competitor? How about France? India? China? Why is only Japan that gets this special "you're a failing country because you don't have a global payment offering"

I think insular startup cultures in those countries absolutely do get called out. German and French companies tend to try to at least serve the whole EU if not more. India and China are bigger markets than Japan. Even so, companies from those regions that lack global ambition absolutely do get called out for it; there's no shortage of articles in the European press worrying about how few European companies are playing on the global stage.

[quartesixte]

>One of the big worries about the Japanese economy is a sense that Toyota has massively missed the bus on electric cars. Especially after building the first really successful hybrid, how have they fallen so far behind the likes of GM or Mercedes/BMW/Audi? Why are they still pushing hydrogen decades after everyone else has realised it's a failure?

But are lithium-ion skateboard cars a success? People are rightly fretting about the lithium supply chain and the sheer weight of these cars raise eyebrows for many observers. We’re not completely in established territory yet — it’s still a frontier out here.

[linguae]

Consumer electronics from Sony, Canon, Nikon, Sharp, etc. immediately come to mind. They were dominant in the 1990s, but have since faced heavy competition.