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The story
A service that once symbolized Japan’s technical prowess quietly shut down this past March without so much as a ripple of attention — that revelation, from a Daily Shincho article, sparked a lively debate on 5ch’s News Express+ board over “why Japan got overtaken by China and South Korea in cameras and smartphones.”
In the thread, opinions varied widely: some blamed a labor culture where the spread of non-regular employment has entrenched a “working is for losers” mentality, others pointed to the neglect of STEM fields and underfunded universities, and still others questioned Japan’s shift toward a tourism-driven industrial structure. No single explanation won out. Posters also traded specific claims about China’s development system and technology transfer, and the discussion branched out into labor, education, and industrial policy.
Daily Shincho, September 22
Turn on the TV or glance at your phone, and all that greets you is one depressing headline after another. Looking at the sorry state of things, who wouldn’t be tempted to mutter, “things used to be better”? This piece takes a close look at the many faces of a “sinking Japan,” whose cracks have grown too numerous to hide.
The smartphone, now more common in households than the television, has come to “rule” modern life. But did you know that behind the endless stream of new gadgets hitting the market, a service that once showcased Japan’s technical prowess to the entire world quietly closed its doors this past March?
Source: dailyshincho.jp / Read the original article
What people said
Except the Japanese just don't work anymore, period.
Too little reward, too much criticism, too much exploitation — people are just exhausted.
Ever since non-regular employment became widespread, the "working is for losers" mentality has really taken root in our labor culture.
It's impressive how skilled Japanese people in their 40s have gotten at just bailing on jobs without notice (バックれ, "ghosting" an employer).
Japan's labor costs are awkwardly in-between — too high.
If you want to make cheap stuff, Vietnam or Cambodia are cheaper.
Re: #38
Re: #62
They heavily favor STEM and heavily disfavor humanities,
so everyone ends up aiming for STEM.
Japan produces way too many useless humanities grads.
They overtook us all at once in just the past 2-3 years.
Having your own massive domestic market is a huge advantage.
It's the sensors, you know?
I bet they're poaching top talent, both domestic and international, with big salaries.
We already know how they do it.
They've got a massive labor surplus, so they run engineers in three shifts around the clock for insane development speed.
It's a brute-force move only China could pull off — not just Japan, nobody else in the world could do it lol
Huh.
Three shifts is wild.
Also, Japan's excessive safety regulations hold back innovation.
Self-driving cars are nearly practical in China and the US, but in Japan the police, legacy media, and accident victims' families immediately start crying "safety!" and nothing ever moves forward.
if we'd taken these seriously, things might be a bit different.
Although, how much can you really do against an opponent capable of stealing even the F-35's blueprints?
They built the J-35 off the F-35's blueprints, but they couldn't replicate the crucial part — the engine — so it ended up with two small engines instead. Cracked me up lol
It's the result of undervaluing engineers for too long.
When the economy went bad, engineers were the first ones let go.
These days, the people who got cut are working at the Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies.
You can say that now, but not for long.
We'll be overtaken in the blink of an eye.
If that happens, so be it, no?
Why don't you just leave Japan already.
We haven't been overtaken once in 20 years.
So which country's going to do it, and when?
Go ahead, use your psychic powers to predict the future.
If we're going there, China and South Korea have it even worse.
Japan has the highest aging rate in the world.
It's not that bad lol
Why not hurry up and do it, then?
They're already doing it, big time.
They've already started grabbing market share.
Even Apple has started using Chinese-made memory chips.
Why do you keep staying in Japan?
Why don't you just go back where you came from?
Reality's harsh, huh.
and are all heading into medicine or finance instead.
When a society doesn't have enough STEM talent, it falls hopelessly behind in commercializing cutting-edge tech.
That's the real reason Japanese companies keep losing.
On top of that, there's no money going into universities.
Fund universities instead of making high school free.
I mean, didn't (former PM) Abe say people shouldn't bother going to university?
Just fund STEM — cut the humanities budget.
No wonder we ended up like this.
This is a crime committed by a lazy Japanese government. In China, everyone involved would've been arrested.
Subsidy-driven governance really isn't a good thing.
So France is a developing country now? lmaooooooooooo
Also there's the skimming that comes from everything being concentrated in Tokyo — or rather, that's probably what sustains the Tokyo concentration in the first place.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The catalyst this time was a Daily Shincho article reporting that a service once seen as a symbol of Japan’s smartphone and camera technology had quietly shut down this past March. In the thread, opinions split over the single question of “why Japan got overtaken by China and South Korea.” Voices citing labor culture (e.g., the entrenchment of a “working is for losers” mindset amid rising non-regular employment), voices citing the neglect of STEM fields and underfunded universities, and voices citing a shift in industrial structure toward a tourism-based economy all appeared side by side, with no single answer prevailing. Specific anecdotes also came up, such as China’s “three-shift” development system and the J-35 fighter jet allegedly being built from leaked F-35 blueprints — but it should be noted these are unverified claims made within the thread, not facts drawn from confirmed reporting. There was also back-and-forth over international comparisons of aging rates and the merits of labor deregulation (the Takenaka reforms), though some replies containing pointed personal attacks on specific politicians or discriminatory language have been excluded from this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “‘Even Our Signature Cameras Have Been Overtaken by China…’ ‘Total Defeat to China and Korea in Smartphones’ — Why Has Japan Become a Has-Been?.”
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