So with the expectation that it will either succeed wildly and they'll sell it to google or it will flame the fuck out and take years off of its employee's lives?
Estonia is running its country like a tech company
161–170 of 203 posts
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#162No opinion on Estonia and its e-government, but running a country like a tech company sounds like a plot of a comedy set in a dystopia. I certainly hope that Estonia is ran better than most tech company Tech companies have many problems that I don't want see in a Government: - Security breaches (and just like every other tech company Bulgaria recently had a dump of the personal data of 5 million citizens) - Privacy i…
Most countries are ran far worse than a company. If citizens had the option to freely jump between countries, most of them would go bankrupt, that's why they rely on coercion. Very few countries are ran efficiently and they re typically very small like Singapore.
Countries have a different purpose than companies. It hardly makes sense to compare them.
Companies can fire people. Countries cannot. Companies are typically not democratically controlled whereas countries should be. Companies are not obligated to meet the basic needs of their employees, protect their rights even if it isn't profitable, defend against foreign adversaries.
Companies have one, very narrow, purpose and efficiency is one property which is induced by that arrangement. States, on the other hand, are human institutions constituted to much broader purpose and scope. I'd actually argue its deeply inhuman to expect efficiency to be a primary property of a state.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you recommend Estonia for setting up a freelancing business -- as in establishing a legal entity for self-employment?
From what I've read I would say so, it's super easy with their e-citizenship.
Only yesterday that there was an article in the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat saying that the e-citizenship is getting increasingly questionable.
Until 2 years ago the e-citizenship was good to open a bank account. After major money laundering scandals (probably unrelated to e-citizenship) you cannot only no longer open a bank account as an e-citizen, but even existing ones of e-citizens are getting closed.
A business without a bank account sounds highly limited to me.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#164My understanding is that Estonia's tech push has some "great PR" but very little substance, and some of my friends' experiences, as well as some other HN commenters on this thread, seem to agree.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to NATO's 2018 report, Estonia was one of only six NATO countries (out of 29) that met the goal of dedicating 2% of their GDP to defense. Not that dedicating 100% would stop Russia if they wanted to invade.
The entire French and UK nuclear arsenal raining down on Moscow and St Petersburg is not a deterrent? Try not talk nonsense on HN.
As the current American President has shown, treaties and obligations only go so far. That destruction of trust may be the most lasting damage that he causes.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to NATO's 2018 report, Estonia was one of only six NATO countries (out of 29) that met the goal of dedicating 2% of their GDP to defense. Not that dedicating 100% would stop Russia if they wanted to invade.
The entire French and UK nuclear arsenal raining down on Moscow and St Petersburg is not a deterrent? Try not talk nonsense on HN.
I think they meant 100% of Estonian budget.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#167This piece is shocking in that nobody was interviewed. Not one single source anonymous nor named. This fails journalism 101 for me.
It's not journalism. It's clearly indicated that the authour of the is the president of the country. So a nice term might be guest writer, but of course everybody knows that it is as neutral as a paid advertisement.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#168"For some weird and unexplainable reason, people normally expect better services from private companies than from their own governments."
Right or wrong, it's not that unexplainable. People leave their cell phone carrier over bad customer service. They buy their things from a different website because of poor service, or go to a different store. It's cheap to change your allegiance to a different brand. It's a lot more expensive to change your allegiance to a different government. Governments in most places in the world have little incentive to improve.
Governments and private companies are both institutions, they just face different incentive structures. Governments aren't somehow magically protected from the people that run them having incentives.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#169Skype came out of Estonia; Microsoft destroyed it. `nuff said there.
Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company
#170Earlier 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. 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 p…
Note that a big reason for cash use in Germany is privacy (no trace of your purchases) and thriftiness (stores avoiding card payment fees).
But yes, Germany is quite slow to adopt new technology.