Estonia is running its country like a tech company • Hacker News Board

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#111

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

jaydenseric wrote: post #57

socialdemocrat wrote: post #19

As a Norwegian I can relate to many things written here. Estonia is clearly ahead of us but this thing of not being the innovator but still using off the shelf technology was something I was forced to reflect upon while living in the US 15 years ago. It was surprising how the country behind so much technology innovation was so bad at using it. It was noticeable both in the private and public sector. It was something…

America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF uses her phone to pay for things and conside…

I've found Germany is even more backwards for consumer-facing tech. I frequently have to pay with cash at businesses here, and of course make sure to always have a coin on you for the shopping cart at the grocery store! Additionally, websites for German institutions are markedly behind what I was used to in the states (e.g. elementary schools), they all still rely heavily on phone calls and letters, and I still had people giving me photos burned on CD's, or emailing them to me one photo at a time. Software/internet UX in general just seems very behind, too.

That's not to say that Germany is less advanced than the US as a whole, but when it comes to consumer-facing software stuff, it feels substantially behind.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#112

Post by wil421 » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

jaydenseric wrote: post #57

socialdemocrat wrote: post #19

As a Norwegian I can relate to many things written here. Estonia is clearly ahead of us but this thing of not being the innovator but still using off the shelf technology was something I was forced to reflect upon while living in the US 15 years ago. It was surprising how the country behind so much technology innovation was so bad at using it. It was noticeable both in the private and public sector. It was something…

America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF uses her phone to pay for things and conside…

We use trains in America? I had a similar experience in Germany with cash. Many of the cafes in Munich did not accept cards. A Finnish student I met shared awkward stories about forgetting to carry cash. I had to walk across the Munich airport to find an ATM to pay my expensive cab with cash. His credit card app could not connect to its services.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#113

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

jaydenseric wrote: post #57

socialdemocrat wrote: post #19

As a Norwegian I can relate to many things written here. Estonia is clearly ahead of us but this thing of not being the innovator but still using off the shelf technology was something I was forced to reflect upon while living in the US 15 years ago. It was surprising how the country behind so much technology innovation was so bad at using it. It was noticeable both in the private and public sector. It was something…

America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF uses her phone to pay for things and conside…

How did you not find an automated kiosk to by a train ticket or pass? Many of these even have the same tap to pay that you are familiar with in Australia.

Since moving back to the states from China 3 years ago, I’ve gone to the ATM twice, and I no longer have to fumble with a phone to align QR codes. To each their own, I guess.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#114

Post by juskrey » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

repomies691 wrote: post #109

juskrey wrote: post #103

I had a pretty intense honeymoon with Estonia, even had a relatively popular blog on e-residency, have visited Estonia twice (great experience btw).. And, after four years, I have reopened my company in UK and trying to liquidate my Estonian one (today I have received a denial letter which says that only Estonian citizen can close my company).. In short: Vague frequently changing rules, introduction of strange comple…

Similar experience with Estonia. It is way overhyped to what it is in practice. It is quite tiny and poor country, and understandably they try to attract foreign business and investors. However just some e-residency card which is not that useful in practice doesn't solve that. The general operating environment feels like that old fusty soviet union, and that is just not that easy problem to solve.

Not that it really feels like old Soviet (I was born in really "Old Soviet" one), but it surely has a bad PR taste targeted on "influencers", VC media and fellow bureaucrats from other countries (like they constantly trying to win some bureaucratic Oscar or something), instead of entrepreneurs, and all of that have become very irritating in the last couple of years.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#115

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #93

vonmoltke wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. America is very backwards because of one thing that happened to you that has literally never happened to me…

Cheques haven't even existed for 15+ years here in Ireland. America is quite slow on the uptake of tech considering they are arguably the most disruptive innovators in the world as a country.

I haven’t used checks routinely for the last 20 years in the states. I’m always really annoyed when some random niche activity requires it and can’t accept an online transfer. Then I have to go to the bank and get a temporary one.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#116

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #78

socialdemocrat wrote: post #19

As a Norwegian I can relate to many things written here. Estonia is clearly ahead of us but this thing of not being the innovator but still using off the shelf technology was something I was forced to reflect upon while living in the US 15 years ago. It was surprising how the country behind so much technology innovation was so bad at using it. It was noticeable both in the private and public sector. It was something…

The payments system in the US is really creaking at the seams, but overall tech adoption by people and small businesses isn't bad. In the UK, the payments system works quite well, but what amazes me is how much physical letters are still a thing: for doctors' appointments with the state-run health system (the NHS), for schools communicating with parents, etc, taking personalized plates on and off a car, ...

Same thing in Germany, I've been surprised at how much reluctance there is to use email or websites for things, instead relying on physical mail or phone calls.

Elementary school wants to communicate about some appointment? Do they use the email from us they already have? Haha no, of course they send a letter (that arrives the day of the appointment, natch), and then later call us to complain that we didn't show. And their website looks like it was designed by an intern in 2006, and is virtually never used to communicate useful information throughout the year.

The current elementary school we have does use email...but much of the content they send actually comes in a PDF instead of the email itself, and not the type of with actual text, it's just a bitmap, so to translate we type shit in manually into Deepl (or use OCR for the longer things).

Want to re-up your alditalk account without going to the store? Want to use a credit card, or even Germany-specific debit card? Nope, you tell us your address and we'll send you a letter, which you can then use to authenticate your bank account for transfers. I guess they're worried about...people paying for my phone service on my behalf?

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#117

Post by delfinom » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #94

vonmoltke wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. America is very backwards because of one thing that happened to you that has literally never happened to me…

I had similar experiences with backwards technology while visiting the US. Buying tickets for the BART or Caltrain is nothing similar to the experience with NS in the Netherlands or even the BVG/MVG in Germany (even if Caltrain nowadays has an app), it feels really antiquated and buggy. Having my card swiped and asking for signatures in receipts at stores, cafés or restaurants is also a thing of the past even in Braz…

>The metro card in NYC is also pretty outdated, the whole metro system looks terrible but talking strictly about technology even the ticket machines are problematic, touch screens that don't work properly and so on; buying bus ticket in PABT is also a quite bad experience.

The Metrocard is what one would call a hi-rel product, it hasn't been replaced because it works (baring the annoyance of the turnstile readers which one can eventually master and never have an issue). It is being phased out now in favor of NFC and contactless card payments by 2022. It's only really recently that NFC support has become widespread in private industry anyway and most banks have resisted the same on issuing contactless cards due to cost (and little or no retailer support until recently). They are also adding a buyable in cash payment card for those that dont have a phone or credit card for the poorer folks that don't have the luxury (essentially contactless Metrocard).

Touchscreens are another fun animal. The reason many suck is because they are resistive instead of capacitance touch. They can be made far more resilient against damage/vandalism than a capacitive touchscreen of a phone where the agency would go bankrupt repairing them every day. Downside is, resistive screens do really suck.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#118

Post by rebane2001 » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #12

Before people start praising Estonia for its e-voting system, which inevitably happens on such stories, let me remind you that the system was indeed open to compromise: https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e... The timeline may also match the hack the GCHQ and NSA did against the Estonian e-ID provider, Gemalto: https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/ So remember that even with hard…

Voting is flawed in general. It'd be way harder to attack Estonia's e-voting system than those touch-screen voting machines in the US.

I have faith in the Estonian system once they make e-voting completely transparent (which is something they're working on, but it's not there yet)

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#119

Post by delfinom » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #98

piva00 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar experiences with backwards technology while visiting the US. Buying tickets for the BART or Caltrain is nothing similar to the experience with NS in the Netherlands or even the BVG/MVG in Germany (even if Caltrain nowadays has an app), it feels really antiquated and buggy. Having my card swiped and asking for signatures in receipts at stores, cafés or restaurants is also a thing of the past even in Braz…

Except for the actual card technology issues (which are frustrating, though that glacier is slowly moving), those are all matters of how those transit agencies are run, not issues with the payment system. As for cashless technology, there is significant political backlash to cashless systems. See the efforts by NYC to force businesses to accept cash as payment. I don't think the glacier is going to move much faster u…

>As for cashless technology, there is significant political backlash to cashless systems. See the efforts by NYC to force businesses to accept cash as payment. I don't think the glacier is going to move much faster until that political resistance is addressed.

But it's political resistance for valid reasons. Per the FDIC, 18% of Americans are underbanked https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ and 8% are unbanked.

The real problem is 1.) banks are a cancer on society. Most banks these days charge you ridiculous fees if you don't have even a $1500 in the account 2.) the unbanked and underbanked aren't introduced enough to credit unions which are ideally their answer to having savings account that doesnt fuck them 3.) unforunately credit unions cant afford to take risk with offering those with poor credit ratings a credit card

Otherwise, consider yourself lucky to be posting on HackerNews from probably working a tech job to be arguing for non-cash accepting stores. Plenty of people don't have that luxury.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#120

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

DonnyV wrote: post #108

Income inequality is very large there. https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-living-conditio...

also, the per capita income is no higher than in Lithuania which one wouldn't guess given the barrage of articles about Estonia's 'innovative' government.

Relatively sound advice is that whenever someone advertises to run the government 'like a business', the outcome is going to be 90% disappointing and hot air.

This is essentially just a huge PR campaign, the electronic voting is a security disaster, and if you see a government official talk about putting things 'on the blockchain' just run.