> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works."
Honestly, even though I love the idea of Japan and the idealized vision of Japan that's often presented in the media, I can't help thinking that a lot of this stuff can be found much closer to home in Europe. The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
Or come to downtown Vancouver. I live in a small apartment, but within four blocks I have a community centre with gym, a pharmacy, a post office, a grocery store, a small bakery, the best liquor store in the city, three banks, a hot pot restaurant, a physiotherapist/massage therapist office, a vet, a dispensary, multiple hairdressers, an optometrist, several restaurants, two places to get gelato, a public plaza with a weekly farmer's market, a walking/cycling route along the waterfront, a car wash, a sports bar with arcade machines, skeeball, and pinball, an enclosed pollinator meadow, a science museum/IMAX theatre, two separate public "subway" lines (though one is elevated and one is below-grade), and two private but inexpensive water taxi services.
I can leave my house at 6 AM and go get fresh bread or baked goods and go sit by the water, or I can leave the house at 7 AM to get groceries if I'm out of something and be back by 7:10.
American cities don't want this because having a huge empty house with a huge empty yard and having to drive 90 minutes to get to work or 30 minutes to get groceries is the American Dream and no one who's been sold this dream wants to believe that there are so many better and more efficient ways to live.
It's because living in downtown Vancouver is expensive. Your rent probably comes close to covering the mortgage on one of those huge empty houses in the suburbs. That fresh baked good is probably ~$4 while the equivalent at Walmart is $1. No doubt it's a great lifestyle for well off DINKs. A lot harder to make it work for a family of 5 on 50k a year.
Walmart bakes fresh bread too. I get it Walmart sucks but they do have everything that a normal supermarket has, including fresh hot food, bakery, deli.
It shouldn’t be, and certainly doesn’t have to be. Logically it should be cheaper to live in an apartment than an entire house - obviously.
Suburbs are subsidized by economic centres. And the state of affairs in North America - Vancouver included - is we’re not building housing to match demand. That’s true purely in terms of individual units but it’s also true for types of units. Like apartments that aren’t luxury units, but that can fit a family. They don’t build those anymore because city council makes it completely unprofitable for developers.
If you think that apartment living is inherently more expensive I’m sorry to tell you that you have it completely backwards.
This 20-minute video argues that downtowns subsidize suburbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1G3D55LD-E. I found the arguments pretty persuasive. I'd love to hear counterpoints to them, though.
Yeah, something that bothers me is that there is such a tradeoff between affordability and walkabiliy. Most of the walkable cities/towns I would imagine being able to afford living in later in life I would imagine will no longer be affordable when I eventually make money (even on a dual income). Granted, I also don't want to live in dense areas but also want walkability.
I can find affordable walkability across the US - if we define affordability as "not that much more expensive than the new McMansions outside of the smallish town" - the usual downside is you have to accept whatever that small town offers in its two mile radius.
While you are correct about Vancouver downtown, once you get o suburbs like Langley, Coquitlam, they are no different that what you are calling out American cities for.
If we limit this to downtowns, there are several cities in America that are similar (Boston, Seattle, SF, SanDiego, Austin, NYC to name a few).
It tells me the way they measure 'livable' is wrong. Given the choice, most people would choose to be in any one of those over where ever they are now, and the cities on 'most livable' lists.
Those top 20 livable lists are always pretty narrowly defined though. They’ll mention some pricey cities in Switzerland for sure, and for forget the poor slouches that have to commute into Bern from Freiburg.
> They’ll mention some pricey cities in Switzerland
The thing is that these cities aren't pricy for swiss people, with a swiss pay-cheque (err, direct bank-to-bank money transmit). It's all a result of decades long higher inflation there, that now has this extreme price difference. And with prices did their wages increase ... but not yours, visiting Switzerland. At least the country is so small you can just drive through. You don't need to go into one of their supermarket and see that all the stuff is 2x as costly as north, east, west or south of it ...
But yeah, prices play probably a huge role in this "livability" index.
Zürich (Zurich) is at place 3, while Wien (Vienna) is at 2. And I guess this has something to do with the spectacular low flat rents in Wien. They have lots of non-profit cooperatives that own the houses and take rent so that they can refurbish the houses and build new ones (1/4 of all flats in Austria is build by such cooperatives). All over Austria, 16% of all flats/houses are owned by them. But I guess in Wien it's even higher.
There are comparison sites that say that in München (Munich) you pay in average 1249 € for rent, while in Wien it is 872 €. Okay, I select the most expensive german town, so maybe this is rigged. But even with capital vs. capital Wien is cheaper.
Those deals are only for locals though. If you move to Switzerland you need to pay. Actually, the same is true of any place with any kind of public housing or rent control, it’s a sticky advantage. Having been subjected to the Swiss rental market before, it is stressful for outsiders.
I wonder if the USA will go down the same route eventually.
Hahaha. Absolutely on point. Don’t like the outcome? Methodology is bad.
Never mind this has been around for decades.
It actually makes perfect sense. In every metric that impacts a persons everyday life the us is almost always dead last among OECD countries. So of course the cites are too.
Honolulu and Atlanta are the most livable cities in the US? Give me a break. It doesn't pass the smell test at all. The methodology is obviously biased. No matter if it has been around for years or not.
That would imply they created their hacker news account when they were 3-8 years old. Seems unlikely.
Its more likely that they simply value all the convenience they listed over having their own backyard, larger living space, living in a quiet safe neighborhood for kids to run around in, and being surrounded by nature.
One key difference that jumps out at me between various cities in Japan and Vancouver is that the COL seems significantly better in Japan. When I visited Vancouver I couldn't afford to stay in or even near the city, I had to find a place about 20 minutes away and even then it was pricey. Whereas in Japan I had no problem finding affordable stays in city centers in all of the major cities I visited, including Tokyo.
I will admit my ignorance here however and acknowledge there are likely myriad other variables at play here that I'm not considering.
Affordable to you or affordable to the locals? The yen has devalued a lot in the past decade or so, giving foreigners a lot more spending power in Japan and causing the current tourism boom and backlash.
Still affordable to locals. The yen has devalued, and the cost of mansions (condos) have gone up, but single family homes, small apartments, etc are still similarly priced to buy, and rent is generally stable. A major difference is that if you are OK with a tiny apartment, you can get one, and it'll be something you can pay.
You can definitely see affects of the poor economy lately (lots of pawn shops popping up, replacing expensive cafes/restaurants), but housing is still reasonable for now.
The weak yen has certainly made Japan feel much cheaper for foreign visitors in recent years. But even before that, the general price level was lower than in many Western cities.
Also, if you're trying to save money as a local, moving just 3–4 train stops away often makes a noticeable difference in rent or hotel prices.
As a visitor, it's probably impossible to know the real cost of living is in different areas, because you're not employed locally, paid local wages, or paying rent and utilities. You are a foreigner with foreign money staying in hotels.
Plenty of American cities have this. I have three big grocery stores within a 2-7 minute walk. Myriad restaurants, bakeries, and cafes literally on the same block and within walking distance of me.
Vancouver is great, just wanted to call out the bias and massive overgeneralization in your statement.
And yet many people continue to choose to live in the US or actively try to immigrate here. "Most livable" is highly subjective and such rankings are but one lens to evaluate where to live.
Unfortunately there is no such thing as utopia and there are always pros and cons.
I live in Ballard Seattle, we have most of that except the hot pot place (we are getting a Korean BBQ someday soon though). Ok, no imax (you have to take the bus to Seattle center for that). And…no subway-like mass transit until 2065 it seems.
But you can get that in the states, you just need to pay for it, although the prices are something Vancouverites can surely emphasize with. And frankly, Vancouver area has some wicked unhappy commute opportunities as well.
The nice thing about living in China was that it was easy and cheap to live urban.
It really isn’t that bad even if you do adjust for local salaries, but only to a point. Still have lots of people commuting in from the suburbs and that can be a brutal 2 hour commute each way.
America's greatest achievement is to last as long as it has while inverting all common sense. What is the fatal seed, I often wonder. I think this article suggests what it is. The role of the car in its fabric suggests it's hyper-individualism: a myth that the more untethered the self it, the more it will thrive. Hogwash
Probably goes back to the Roman idea of ownership + dominion; you're legally allowed to neglect your property. Compare this with some American tribes, during the same time period, where property ownership was shared and based on who were the best stewards of the land (neglect your space, and you lose standing in the community).
I have a nature area, gym, pharmacy, grocery store, numerous restaurants, bar, and a bunch of other amenities you just listed. I live basically on the rail line so I can get to the rest of the city in 30 minutes (with more of said amenities) and am at the intersection of two major highways which means I have even more travel options. I'm 2 train stops from a smaller downtown which has every botique shop you can imagine.
I do live in a place that was specifically designed for this but these places are designed and aren't that unheard of in US cities. When I lived in the suburbs I had similar options a few minutes walk from my house.
I live in an American city. I have a yard large enough to play frisbee with my dog. I walk downstairs to go to work. I can walk to a good taqueria and take pole dancing classes a few doors up (someday). There is an evil bank that I could walk to but don't. Cafe, Thai, Soul Food, Vietnamese, Pizza. Closer than all of the walking distance I mentioned is light rail that goes downtown and further. Someday it might even go to Vancouver (the other one sadly :( )
Canada wins either way. You can notice this on reddit discussions too - they are absolutely upset about the orange king. And that motivates Canadians to do better than Americans now - after all you don't want the orange king to be able to ruin Canada here.
The single most frustrating thing about being in Canada is they can't even work out how to use their current grievances to deal with, you know, getting out of our own way like the crazy inter provincial trade restrictions. And yet the complex remains.
One of the insane aspects of this is it's genuinely easier to deal with foreign countries than other parts of the same country . . . but I digress.
> Canada basically IS the US with metric and the people talk funny.
I’ve spent considerable time in both - seen something around 46 states and all but two provinces and territories. I’m actually an immigrant from a different OECD county.
On the surface, the US and Canada are fairly similar. Once you live and go to work everyday, the differences are stark.
Every single person in Canada has healthcare. Medical bankruptcy does not exist. People are much kinder, much less prone to anger and violence, and happier. There is vastly less crime. People care about the collective good, not just themselves.
The US is a dog eat dog world. Canada is a work together world.
I’d been living and working in the US for 6 months, and came to Canada for the first time. After 30 minutes I felt more at home and happier than I did at any time during six months in the US.
They are NOT the same. Anyone that thinks they are should live in Canada for a few years and see how they feel.
If you're ok waiting 6-18 months for basically everything that's not life threatening.
The reality is that people either suffer in our system or go abroad for medical treatment.
> I’d been living and working in the US for 6 months, and came to Canada for the first time. After 30 minutes I felt more at home and happier than I did at any time during six months in the US.
Of course, you were on vacation. Wait until you find out that the median Canadian income is ~$33k USD and s typical apartment is ~$2500 per month for 2 bedrooms.
For example, both myself and my 2 year old son had to get surgeries considered "elective" in Canada. Both quoted over a year wait time. I went to an EU country got it done in 3 days, got his surgery done in a couple weeks. He's been recovered for half a year and no one even called back yet to schedule his surgery in Canada.
But yes, I guess when he was born they made space for us in the hospital. Of course he ended up getting most of his yearly checkups and vaccines in the EU as well since over there you can get an appointment in a day here you have to book months out.
And before you call me a liar why don't you check one of the thousand sources that corroborate what I say, or at least a couple I put in this comment.
Also, the thing with medical care, it's fine until it's not. I never needed any medical care until I was 39 so of course I thought it was fine.
Edit - let's also not forget that 23,000 patients die waiting for surgery in Canada per year. That's more than the amount of people murdered in the US per year and not per capita (would be equivalent of 200,000+ Americans dying waiting for surgery).
Is the Canadian healthcare system perfect? Of course not.
Is it the best on the world? Clearly not.
Is there lots of room for improvement? You bet, and people like my wife are working hard at it.
The Canadian system is vastly better than the us system for the vast majority of people.
A system where everyone is covered and there is no concept of medical bankruptcy is obviously better out of the gate.
Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us. I mean, you wanna talk about paid leave days? Maternity leave? Crime? Inequality? Cost of healthcare v outcomes, life expectancy….?
> Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us.
Maybe because 34% of ALL government money in Canada goes towards healthcare. So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Maybe it's bad luck that my family has required several "elective" (note that elective doesn't mean optional) procedures in the last few years, but it's a kick in the teeth to have to pay out of pocket for healthcare in another country when so much of our taxes go towards it here and we can't opt out.
> differentiates Canada from the us.
Not going to lie, the constant US boogeyman is what keeps Canada so fucking mediocre. There's 38 "rich" countries in the world (OECD) and a ton of them are ahead of us. Why aren't we striving to be more like Switzerland, Germany, France or Norway? Why is it some binary of USA or not USA? There's a ton of countries that are safer than CANADA (nevermind the US), get more maternity/paternity days, get more vacation days, get better healthcare, better income, less inequality and a better income/cost ratio. Even the laggards in the EU have better productivity (GDP per capita) growth than Canada and even the most dangerous EU countries are safer than Canada and even the worst EU health systems are better than ours. But we're just going to ignore that because some aspect of the US is worse (also half your points the US will still win because lots companies still provide those things even if they're not required).
If every Canadian spent a year living in central or northern Europe they'd be radicalised enough to overthrow this government. Of course the reality is that Canadians who do move abroad just stay there (more Canadians live abroad than any of our peer countries) so the people that do stay here are the ones with little ambition. For better or worse I was born in Canada AND have a residence in central Europe so it's pretty easy for me to see how Canada has fallen and is being left behind by our peers. If we didn't have resources and easy access to the largest market in the world we'd be a 3rd world country (or more likely would have just never become a country).
> So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use.
Yep, that’s how it works in every country with healthcare for all. Remember you’re paying less than Americans pay, and you’re getting better outcomes. [1]
I also pay for police and firemen and a ton of other stuff I’ve never used. But I’m happy my community gets that safety net, and it will be there if I ever need it.
> There are 38 "rich" countries in the world (OECD) and a ton of them are ahead of us. Why aren't we striving to be more like Switzerland, Germany, France or Norway?
I agree with you 100%
Canada is not the greatest at many things, and has a long way to improve. I’m happy people are working hard to do that.
The original point above was that Canada is essentially the same as the US, which I refuted.
At no point did I say Canada is the best or has nothing to improve.
I’ve spent significant time in 65 countries, worked in a handful.
I chose Canada. I wasn’t born here, I hold three passports (one EU) and could leave anytime.
> so pay for police and firemen and a ton of other stuff I’ve never used. But I’m happy my community gets that safety net, and it will be there if I ever need it.
That's what you think... My previous home also burned down in a wildfire that claimed 2000 other people's homes... A wildfire that was warned about for 20 years and for which zero precautions were undertaken.
This year other people's homes have burned down and more are at risk near Vernon.
Canada is a joke of a country, the only good parts are the camping, skiing and proximity to the US for business (assuming you don't need venture capital of course).
I never thought it was "just like" the US. It's worse. It has all the downsides of both the US and EU with none of the upsides of either. We get taxed like EU for healthcare that is inaccessible and we still have to pay for drug/dental all while making far less than the US and not getting any of the benefits of the EU.
The only reason anyone at all moves to Canada is that the US has per-country immigration quotas...
Canadians pay less for healthcare and get better outcomes than Americans [1]. That’s one of the reasons I live here.
They also have a higher life expectancy. Better maternity leave (my wife recently took 18 months). Better paid time off. Better labor protections (wtf is “at will employment”?). Canada has lower rates of obesity, deaths from treatable conditions, lower rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of
prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of
homicides, income inequality, and wealth inequality.
These are all known facts from OECD data, and in my experience, these are the things that shape my quality of life day to day in any given country.
So there are a lot of reasons I continue to choose to live in Canada while holding three passports.
99% of Vancouver by area does not have anything resembling 'SF level drug disorder', and if your 'nice US suburb' didn't just punt all of its fucking problems into its nearest downtown, it too would have an East Hastings, or three.
It probably has a lower homicide rate (and a vastly lower vehicular homicide rate) per capita than your 'nice US suburb'.
That same 'nice US suburb' is also, for some reason, packed to the gills with terrified people who have an inexplicable desire to own guns for 'self-defense'. Self-defense from what..?
Having been to quite a number of what I would call 'nice US suburbs', and knowing people from them, a significant fraction of them act like they are living in some lawless Mad Max hellscape. How do you square this circle?
TFA explains that Japan is unusual as being the only country in Asia with two cities in the top 10 most liveable cities in the World. That's why they wrote the article. If Spain had been the only country in Europe with two cities in the top 10, they might have done it in Spain.
> The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
This. When my Japanese girlfriend finally visited my small hometown in Spain, she was surprised how lively the city was. Not Madrid or Barcelona, but just a small 100k city. In Japan the big cities are cool, but small cities are ugly and boring.
> ... they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city
That's a horseload of bullcrap. For a start there are plenty of pickpockets in many spanish cities (not just Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Then there are people visiting houses: don't tell me it doesn't happen for I had my house visited by thieves the one time I forgot to put the alarm on (because I had to run to the ER for my daughter was between life and death).
I happen to know both Spain and Japan very well (I've got family in Japan): there's not anywhere near the level of safety you have in Tokyo in spanish cities.
I agree it'd be hard for almost any other country to match that general sense of "safety" in Japanese society - we've probably all read the stories about wallets full of cash being dutifully handed in to the lost property office, and so on.
But the idea that Spanish towns are seething with pickpockets and everyone is creeping around in fear is also "bullcrap", imo.
My family is from Spain and I've spent a lot of time living and visiting there. Before she passed away, my 90+ year-old mum was out with her friends every single evening - playing cards, walking around the streets, mixing it up with families and small children strolling and playing outside long into the night.
I'm pretty amazed some robbers somehow knew your alarm was off that one time you had to rush out. That was pretty bad luck.
On the other hand Spanish trains don't need women only cars due to the massive amount of dirty chikan ojaji (old guys that love groping women, even underage schoolgirls). Japan is not a paradise either.
You can live a decent life in the Netherlands with working 36 hours a week. And you can also be an individual- there still isn't a real gay pride in Tokyo.
I don't think this is as absurd as it sounds. Come to the US Midwest. "Wisconsin nice" is a stereotype, and makes us seem a little bit like hicks, but it's real. People really are polite to one another. A friend from one of the coasts observed after a long trip through rural areas by bike: "Nobody tried to kill me."
Sometimes our infrastructure and zoning are awkward, and we're too reliant on cars, but I still think there's hope.
And outside of a handful of New England towns, wherever that kind of city planning exists in the US, those parts of town are inhabited by half-dead zombies on meth whispering threats at you as you walk by. Not a pleasant experience. That's why sane people in the US usually move to suburbia as soon as they can afford a car.
> smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access
The genius of the BBC is to gloss over that in a culture that isn't Japanese these things all easily become negatives.
Who wants the smell of other people's food, maybe from a cuisine you hate? Or new local businesses cannot start because they can't buy property limiting options for consumers? And public transit stops become noise and litter parties.
All of your complaints sound like someone who is projecting American values and behavior onto another culture.
> Or new local businesses cannot start because they can't buy property limiting options for consumers?
Are a lot of new local businesses starting up in America's suburbs? Is it a problem to have the same shops operating in the community for decades if they serve the community's needs?
Even in Manhattan I saw 'shops' which seemed to have a similar square footage to my bathtub; if there's an opportunity people will find a way.
> And public transit stops become noise and litter parties.
If you have garbage cans at your transit stops and your populace are respectful towards each other then this is also not a problem. If your idea of a transit stop is somehow also some kind of rowdy social event then the problem is not urban planning.
Fundamentally though this is a common American attitude. Look at something that's new and different and say "This would be bad for these reasons", ignoring the fact that dozens of other Western and Eastern countries with dozens of different cultures and behaviors all do these things and it all works out fine.
It's the same as the argument about health care. Socialized medicine would be bad for reasons X, Y, Z, even though if you look at countries which have socialized medicine and a similar standard of living you'll see that not only do those countries not have those problems but also those countries have better health outcomes, longer life expectancy, and more efficient healthcare.
You say that none of this stuff would work in "a culture that isn't Japanese", but what you really mean is that it wouldn't work "in a culture which is American", so maybe that's a good place to start looking for things to change.
Initially I didn't mind those smells and sounds in Asia (it's anywhere not just Japan). But unless you're born there they become annoying quickly, especially if you can smell things and hear public transit in your flat. And because it's a BBC report it's for sure for western audience who was not born there.
Exactly what I was thinking. In Europe (e.g. UK or Germany) people often complain when chip shops or other fried food establishments open below them, because of the constant smells.
I think the only wise thing Elon Musk ever said was "Generally newspapers seem to try to answer the question, 'What is the worst thing that happened on the Earth today?'"
> Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader.
Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems - and also because they are all-round shits - I decided to abandon the ecosystem having been a customer since the days they only sold books.
I have owned two Paperwhites, two Oasis devices, and a Kindle Scribe. I sold all of them last year and bought a Kobo Libra Colour.
I get WAY more joy from reading on the Kobo. I love buying books from the Kobo store (yes I know they also have DRM) - and I'm buying and reading WAY more on the Kobo than I was at the end of my time with Amazon.
Every time I buy yet another book on the Kobo Store I feel the thrill of sticking it to the horrible, anti-user shits at Amazon.
> pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering
While I understand people pirating movies - there are hundreds of movies I'd happily pay to watch, but which are literally unavailable to me because of some arbitrary 'regional' restriction imposed by the distributors. But I can't think of a single book that isn't available in most parts of the world - certainly they're available wherever a Kobo is for sale.
So how are new books going to be published in the future, if people like you don't pay writers for their work? Would you like your work to be pirated, so you wouldn't be able to even buy another Kobo?
I feel like if the platform is unwilling to give you access to books you posted for, you should be able to download them from arrr without authors or publishers being affected financially - buy first pirate later.
People have been writing for much longer than writing has been a profession. And their work has been published by the means of the day, which pre-Gutenberg in the West meant hand-copying.
It's not immoral in any way to make a living off of your own creations, but - artists gonna art.
Imagine being so good at writing, that people out there are trying to get a copy of it that they can upload to The Pirate Bay. Hell yeh, I'd love that... seems like reaching the big leagues.
Datahoarders with hard drives full of pirated books are not nearly as much of a threat to writers as, say, AI slop making it difficult to market new books. If you pirate a book and read it, the author can still sell you the sequel. Not so much if you don't even know who the author is.
Disappointed to see that the first reactions on HN are so dismissive.
I'm both amazed and really pleased to see anyone attempting to launch a totally new scanner in 2025, and genuinely hoping the actual scans are really made at the resolution and color-depth claimed in the text: too many recent scanners are simply upscaled, lower bit-depth devices marketed with exaggerated specs.
I also have a Nikon Coolscan 9000, so I'm not immediately in the market for this. But I don't expect the Coolscan to last forever, and the Firewire connections on the machine are already abandoned by Apple, who chose not to support the cables in their latest Operating System - so eventually I won't be able to connect it to a new computer.
The open source aspect seems worthy of attention if nothing else. Even if this is a middle-of-the-road scanner - the community being able to customize, improve and support it would be incredible. Especially considering your scanner is considered one of the best despite being over 20 years old.
OTOH - partly playing devil's advocate here - I'm dealing with several bank and inheritance-related issues in the UK from my home in Sweden now, and needing to do pretty much ANYTHING with an authority in the UK feels like stepping back into the 17th century.
There's a constant requirement for paperwork to prove who I am - always in the form of items that are 100% digital nowadays in the Nordic countries (like a "utility bill" or a "credit card statement" - on paper, posted by snail-mail to my home address!)
These then need to be 'notarized' by a legal person - with seals and embossed stamps before they can be used to identify me. It's medieval.
Swede here. I would not want to go back to days without BankID and related tools. That being said, the implementation has some less than desirable features. It's privately owned by some kind of joint venture by the banks. It only supports the major OS:s. So you're pretty much forced to own a Android or IPhone to function. Also, I haven't had the need to do this myself but taking care of somebody else's legal dealings (like an old parent or children) I understand is quite cumbersome. I think that kids are kind of forced to get BankID when they are quite young.
There are alternative implementations but I'm not aware of anyone that uses them.
It's more like we've slipped into this solution out of pure convenience than having made a deliberate choice.
Absolutely hate BankID, making it too easy to integrate has resulted in businesses and the government requiring it in places where it's totally unnecessary.
I live overseas, don't have a Nordic bank account. Now when I'm occasionally visiting, I can't buy alcohol because the website requires me to prove my age with BankID.
This, as opposed to most of Europe where you can just have alcohol delivered without anybody asking you for ID at any point. I'd be happy to show an ID at the point of collection/delivery, but buying beer shouldn't require strong KYC.
You are misrepresenting this slightly in my opinion.
Yes, we have strong laws around alcohol sales in Sweden that try to limit damage to society from excessive alcohol consumption while bringing in tax that can be used for state services instead of going to corporations.
However!
We have a well-run state monopoly (Systembolaget) that sells alcoholic beverages at reasonably good prices, with a wide selection and friendly knowledgeable staff. You don’t need BankID to shop at any of their physical stores which are spread all across the country. If they think you might be under 20 you will need to show physical ID, passport is fine.
Any restaurant or bar that sells alcohol will happily sell to you, unless you are underage.
Low-grade alcoholic beverages (<=3.5%), including many beers, can be bought in any grocery store.
Sweden is one of the most legally restrictive European countries when it comes to buying alcohol though. So no surprise that it's harder here in that regard. I'd be very surprised if you didn't need to use BankID to buy alcohol online. I'm surprised you can buy online at all.
> There's a constant requirement for paperwork to prove who I am - always in the form of items that are 100% digital nowadays in the Nordic countries (like a "utility bill" or a "credit card statement" - on paper, posted by snail-mail to my home address!)
These are always digital in the UK too. When I did my mortgage application I had to go to my bank, ask them to print me out a statement and then stamp it to 'verify' that it was real.
I'm in the process of renewing my mortgage. Both my and my wife's banks allow you to export the most recent statement as a PDF, which we passed to the broker and have had no complaint. Same thing with the initial mortgage five years ago.
Agree. Proof of ID in the UK often means copies of utility bills. You can fill out your own with an online template pretty easily. Inside the UK you don't even need to bother with the notarization requirement. It is indeed backwards.
You can say "well you have a driving license" except if you're a teenager or an elderly person who surrendered theirs, you don't. You can also say "use a passport" but they're not convenient to carry and some people have never left the country so never owned one.
An ID card isn't a bad idea per se. It's the same as a driving license except everyone can have it.
What is bad in this round is the government making everyone have it on their phone "because digital is cheaper" (guarantee it will cost billions either way). Similar problems - what about people who don't have phones, how do you mandate I install this on my dumb phone?
The previous iteration might've worked had they not gone overboard on sequencing everyone's genome and giving every government agency and their dog access (only slight exaggeration) to the data.
The clearest example of the deficiencies of identity documents in the UK is the "Right to Work" process.
If you're an employer, you are legally required to check that anyone you hire has the right to work in the UK. The penalty for hiring an illegal immigrant - even accidentally - is a £60,000 fine. The guidance on how to perform a Right to Work check is 60 pages. A whole industry of third-party identity verification providers has sprung up, because the system is so complex that most employers don't feel able to do it themselves.
Ironically, performing a right to work check on a legal migrant with a work permit is trivially easy, because we've digitalised the visa system. They give you their Home Office share code, you type it in to a website, and the website shows you a photo of that person and clearly states whether or not that person has the right to work. We already have a really good digital ID service, but British nationals can't use it.
I visited Sweden this summer. One or two things accepted only Swish payment. Seems to be impossible for a visitor to use, you need to set it up with your bank.
I managed by asking a friend to use theirs. But don't assume that tech that "makes life easier" automatically means that it's inclusive. (See also parallel discussion today about EU Age Verification app [0]).
Part of the reason this is difficult maybe that there's an ongoing problem in the UK of foreign gangs using faked documents to steal inheritances[1][2].
I'm skeptical though whether a compulsory ID card for British nationals would help with that.
On the other-other hand, here in Spain we have universal digital IDs, and we still need notarised paper copies of every document for every official process. Sometimes these processes are lining enough pockets they will never die...
I too not long ago went through the inheritance gunk with the UK.
> These then need to be 'notarized' by a legal person - with seals and embossed stamps before they can be used to identify me. It's medieval.
My experience of this was they (the insurance/solicitors) were just being obstructionist for fun, because when confronted with the requested notarized documents they kept moving the goalposts around, and only a threat to withdraw business from them on other fronts made them snap out of it.
Nor have I ever had to prove my identity to a utility company to initiate service, so I'm not sure why a bill or statement with a name on it is proof of anything.
And when my father died, the water and electric service stayed on in his name for another decade at the house. Nobody really seems to care as long as the bills get paid.
I'm genuinely hoping that this is just an early beta omission because, contrary to the very limited use-case presented in the article (iPods) Firewire is still an essential part of many professional workflows: an enormous amount of very expensive high-end music-studio equipment uses Firewire, as well as film scanners such as the CoolScan range from Nikon, that still outperform camera scanning - even using modern 'medium format' cameras like the Fuji GFX100.
Replacing that equipment would be extremely expensive - disincentivizing buying new Mac equipment.
My work really flourished during WFH. I was actually headhunted back to a place I'd worked before with the (verbal) promise they were now and always would be 'remote first'.
During the last 2 years my productivity has exploded. I get up, make myself a coffee, and start working at 6am. Then after a shower and a walk in the forest, I work a full day of intense and focussed work.
I've been happy, fit, fulfilled. I've often visited the office and love the social interaction. I've often worked weekends and evening because it's been fun, and I've felt loyalty to the company.
Then 8 weeks ago the CEO suddenly announced RTO.
But this has been such a wake-up call. I stopped doing the extra work, no longer respond to questions that are out-of-hours, and have finally realized that the company really isn't my 'friend' or 'family'.
But best of all, when I'm at the office I can just coast and do practically no work whatsoever - and not only does no-one notice, I've even been getting more managerial praise for my performance.
> I stopped doing the extra work, no longer respond to questions that are out-of-hours, and have finally realized that the company really isn't my 'friend' or 'family'. But best of all, when I'm at the office I can just coast and do practically no work whatsoever - and not only does no-one notice, I've even been getting more managerial praise for my performance.
Perhaps I’ve been jaded by the industry after being in it so long but this struck me. I haven’t felt this way about any company, good or bad, in a long time. After surviving probably my 10th layoff across 5 different companies I can’t imagine ever being loyal, considering anyone at a company a “friend”, and most certainly not “family”.
I agree with your feeling that remote has really made me more productive. But I believe that’s because of the opposite of what you stated. I loved the ability to get a bunch of stuff done and then zone out the rest of the day. Without the constant interruptions, open office, etc I was able to get one giant burst of productivity and then check out. I was on paper “10x” and just omitted the fact I was only working 2/3 time.
Recently with RTO and myself being remote only I’ve been led to burnout. The company I am at has changed the merit equation from good work to showing up to the office. As a result, I end up picking up more slack during my workday as my coworkers get lunches, game rooms, parties, etc. I am still expected to grind and they are not. I sure do miss the remote first days.
My employer is tightening the screws. I get it. RTO externalizes costs and privatizes benefit. The incentives are not aligned for remote work, and it’s a publicly traded firm with an obligation to maximize shareholder value. I get it. While middle management should know if line of business employees are actually producing useful work, regardless of location, expecting 40 or 50-somethings to be engaged at work and not spend their day running personal errands is not realistic. So physical presence is the shareholders’ only option.
I see it as a pay cut where commute and prep hours are uncompensated, and I adjust my valuation of the job accordingly.
This may seem callous, but isn't a large point of crypto that you are 'free' from the shackles imposed by the State?
And I guess that includes protection from criminals by the oppressive forces of the State (aka the police). In which case being kidnapped and having your fingers sent to your family is an integral part of your 'freedom'.
Crypto isn’t synonymous with anarchy, just like the internet isn’t synonymous with pornography. Both are cliches from long ago.
All of the victims are likely tax payers. Law and order is a fundamental service that a legitimate state must provide to all in its jurisdiction, even those who are only resident non-citizens and those that pay little to no taxes in a progressive tax system.
> Crypto isn’t synonymous with anarchy, just like the internet isn’t synonymous with pornography. Both are cliches from long ago.
Saying crypto isn’t synonymous with anarchy, like the internet isn’t with pornography, sidesteps the point. Pornography is just one use of the internet — not its central purpose.
But crypto wasn’t just built to host financial activity — it was designed to restructure it, removing reliance on central authorities. That core intent isn’t a cliché; it’s a defining feature.
Comparing it to incidental internet content is a rhetorical deflection, not a real counterpoint.
That's not what it was designed for, that's just a mixture of propaganda and confusion.
It was designed to solve the double-spending problem with digital currencies, replacing the need for "a authoritative ledger" with a one difficult to forge.
The political project around this was to provide people with a deflationary currency akin to gold, whose inflation could not be controlled by government.
The lack of government control over the inflation of this particular currency, and the lack of an authoritative ledger, are an extremely minimal sense of currency protections (, freedoms). They have as much to do with anarchy as the internet had with porn.
It was designed to avoid the need for existing financial institutions. The doublespend problem was merely the blocker that prevented people from otherwise doing it.
> A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution.
Your point is merely a non sequitur: a change in banking isn’t related to paying taxes or the state as a whole, nor anarchy.
You’re not supporting your central thesis that disintermediating finance is in any way related to removing government — and people using Coinbase, a service that is centralized and does collaborate with government regulation seems to directly counter your stereotype of the customers.
Their point is correct: people who match your fantasy wouldn’t be Coinbase customers — you’re relying on old tropes.
Most (developed states at least) don’t claim the monetary system as a taxation medium. Debasement of currency is a bug not a feature. In the US, you are not required to process your transaction in USD but only need it to pay taxes.
Failed countries (ie: Turkey) rely on the financial system for taxation. Functioning countries shouldn’t care or be bothered by it.
It seems that law-abiding citizens often bear the greatest risk by declaring their assets to tax authorities and relying on so-called "trusted custodians" for savings. Ironically, for many, the safest course of action is likely non-disclosure, though this is, of course, illegal in much of the world.
I only have to declare crypto < 1 year in my holding which means that, while technically illegal to buy 1 second after the new tax year start and not declaring it, in practice, obviously, no-one cares about that. Especially as crypto is not a 1 second buy; it can take hours.
This may be surprising, but I actually don't think opting for a payment method with less consumer protections (that I pay cap gains tax on when if I dispose of it for a profit) is me ceding my right to be protected by the police. You're right that it does seem extremely callous and is honestly a disturbing mindset to have. Hopefully you never experience terror like the victims of the last few months in France experienced in your life.
> You're right that it does seem extremely callous and is honestly a disturbing mindset to have. Hopefully you never experience terror like the victims of the last few months in France experienced in your life.
Thanks for the tone-policing. But instead of implicitly suggesting that my mindset or tone is inappropriate, it would be great if we discussed the substance of the points.
> it would be great if we discussed the substance of the points.
Sure, just read the sentence from my response that you skipped over.
To be clear: I didn't implicitly suggest that your mindset of people who use crypto somehow ceding their right to protection from the state was inappropriate, I stated outright that it was a disturbing and callous mindset.
It's like suggesting that people who protest against police brutality shouldn't get protection from the police in emergency situations, or believe people who are racist to healthcare workers should lose all right to healthcare. The type of mindset held by those who care more about retribution against those who hold different views than a just society.
You can argue that once you are 'free' to own guns, defend yourself, and seek revenge. The state limits your ability to protect yourself, so it has to assume that responsibility.
The persons in France probably paid their taxes. So no, your premise is wrong in that the state will help vs. in a crypto no-tax world. Actually the de-jour crypto paradise didn’t have any kidnappings so far and you don’t have to pay taxes either.
Depends on if they cashed out and how they did it. There was a big trend for a while to go live in Portugal for a while, enough to be considered a tax resident there, and then cash out there because (at the time, idk if it's still true), they had no (or little) tax on crypto cash out.
Yeah, I know two French people who did it (one of them avoided UK taxes as he was paid in crypto while working in the UK, the other it's muddier). I know three people in the space, and only those two were on the financial side, so to me, while Blockchain is still a legit tech, anybody using cryptocurrency I peg as a tax evader.
Good thing we have courts, lawyers and judges for that. It’s funny everyone here hates on Trump but as soon as something align with their view, they want a defacto no due process application.
Sorry if i implied anything, i must have missed part of the conversation, i was just confirming that did happen (taking the portugese residency to avoid crypto tax) a few years ago. In my opinion, police should protect even violent criminals from violence when possible, so of course i'm not advocating for anything to happen on tax "avoiders", and they should be protected. I was just stating that i know people in the crypto space, and if you are, i immediately peg you as a small-time sociopath from my past experience.
Also i don't care about them getting judged for tax evasion, i know they won't be and honestly, good for them. I also don't care for nonviolent thieves and think the same thing about them. Profiteering was not how i was raised, but i understand different people have different standards (and parents, luckily mine are great, it's not the case for everybody). People do what they need to do, i found some comportment sociopathic, but as long as it is nonviolent, i'm not mad.
Which state are you talking about? The 0% tax bracket for long-term capital gains in the U.S. for 2024 for single filers was $47,024, never mind the standard deduction. Then it goes up to 15%, then 20%.
Aside from my doubts about the way this is measured, is it even a good strategy to simply chase the currently "most popular" languages?
A few years ago I shared an office with three aged graybeards who sat in a corner and spent 3 half-days per week silently working on legacy COBOL systems. I thought they were something of a joke, and said so when a person with insight into their invoicing was present. They corrected my impression.
Aside from "the right tool for the right job" kind of conversation, there's one inherent aspect to chasing the most popular language (given that you find an actual ranking that's put up meaningfully, which I don't think the TIOBE index is): you may find more people able and willing to work with it, which can sometimes be a feature.
I've been in a company which had a major refactor need, and they took the opportunity to slowly convert their backend from PHP to Go* because they couldn't find any good PHP developer (let alone any willing to work in PHP). For the actual project, it kinda worked, but for the recruitment, it went from not having any applicants / very mediocre people, to having way more people applying, and a few competent ones in that pool.
* As to whether that was the right choice, that's a completely different topic...
Sort of. Chasing the latest everything is always a bad thing. Chasing ONE latest anything may be a good thing. Staying to far back can be a big negative - COBOL may pay the bills, but you will have a hard time hiring someone willing to work with it, and there are some things we have learned since COBOL that really are worth having.
You should always keep an eye out on what is happening elsewhere. Sometimes those things are enough better you should switch. Sometimes those things are better but you should just add them to what you have. If you write COBOL you should be writing the 2023 version today which has a lot of things not in the original 1959 version (what I don't know what since I don't write COBOL).
There is a cost to switching/rewriting everything. There is a cost to whatever downsides of your language/frameworks have. The other language/framework options also have their own downsides - often they are unknown. Most of the problems you are having are not caused by the language, rewriting to a better architecture in the current language would solve a lot of problems (I recommend you put the money for a big rewrite into a refactor in place effort, the costs long term is similar, but you are always shippable which means if budgets are a concern you can scale back and extend the schedule)
If the language is popular that is a big advantage. I can teach you whatever programming language you choose to use, but if the language you choose is popular you can hire "experts" while if the language is unique you will spend years training people before they are experts. This is a big advantage of something popular.
I agree this is not a good strategy, but I found it curious that Kotlin seems to have stalled and maybe is even declining. After all, it really seems what many developers would like Java to be. The article also mentions the existence of better alternatives in the form of some other languages' cross-platform frameworks, but doesn't make any concrete example. Anyone has ideas on which frameworks those could be?
Btw, Kotlin isn't platform-specific as they seems to say in the article, it's cross-platform as well.
> After all, it really seems what many developers would like Java to be.
As a backend Kotlin developer, I wonder if a lot of the advantages that Kotlin used to have over Java are rendered moot by new features in recent versions of Java.
It may not be that Kotlin is declining in general but rather mobile development using it (and Swift) is declining which is the dominant case. If we could see non-mobile Kotlin use that would be an interesting trend to see. I imagine some of the adoption and familiarity could carry over to backend uses.
Honestly, even though I love the idea of Japan and the idealized vision of Japan that's often presented in the media, I can't help thinking that a lot of this stuff can be found much closer to home in Europe. The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.