Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#181

Post by astrange » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

perching_aix wrote: post #141

astrange wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands. This is a fun thing to keep in mind when people tell you Japan is a "homogenous society". (It's not high-trust either.)

When people discuss Japan being a homogeneous society, that typically refers to it being a very ethnically uniform society. I really, really don't see how that connects to... payment systems. Surely you're not trying to claim that what people actually mean typically is that Japan is homogeneous in every arbitrary way possible, right? That's a bit too much even for a strawman, even if I factor in the kind of forum thi…

> When people discuss Japan being a homogeneous society, that typically refers to it being a very ethnically uniform society.

Even if you ignore tourists that's not really true of Tokyo either. Japan doesn't collect ethnicity statistics though - the numbers for this you may have seen are misreadings of something else.

> Surely you're not trying to claim that what people actually mean typically is that Japan is homogeneous in every arbitrary way possible, right?

That's absolutely what people online think about Japan, they think it's a stuffy collectivist society where everyone agrees with each other and there are no immigrants.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#182

Post by soruly » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

askvictor wrote: post #64

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #55

I don't understand -- we are talking about 100ms or so of latency? which is almost completely dwarfed by any mechanical action such as the gates actually opening?? This is about as ridiculous as it gets. The videos that compare the UK system with the JP system practically show the same throughput, even when in the UK video most people are using magnetic/paper tickets (which by necessity are going to be much slower th…

Many gates in Japan are open by default, and close if they detect someone trying to go through without tapping/inserting ticket/incorrect ticket. I'm not sure why it's not all of them though. But the whole system is built for speed/throughput. Smaller stations outside the cities don't have gates

Bi-directional gates are always open by default. One-way gate would close after a certain time to prevent people coming from the wrong side.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#183

Post by timewizard » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

If I had to ask “why is it so fast?” I’d turn it around and ask “Why are western systems so slow?” and posit that Western capital has an ideology that throughout matters by latency doesn’t. (As Fred Brooks puts it, “Nine women can have a baby in one month”). As an individual or a customer you perceive latency directly though, and throughout secondarily. So it comes down to empathy or lack thereof.

The article suggests a reason:

> Places like Hong Kong and Tokyo have a lot of commuters, leading to a lot of congestion around station gates.

However I think it's actually _population density_ that's the critical factor. The investment in new payment technologies is much more likely to pay off in these environments than in the US.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#184

Post by sriamanan » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

eloisius wrote: post #18

I think they are even more useful in Taiwan. Every single transit system across the entire island that I’ve ever encountered accepts EasyCard (悠遊卡). Even ferries. So does every convenience store, and even a lot of proper restaurants and stores. They are also fast, like you don’t even have to break your strike while passing the turnstiles to enter the metro.

>the entire island Is it China's influence that Taiwan is not being referred to as a country.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#185

Post by suddenexample » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

lorenzotenti wrote: post #160

What really stands out is the difference in design philosophy. In London, the gates are normally closed and only open if your Oyster card is valid. In Tokyo, the gates are open by default and only close if your card fails. You don’t have to wait for doors to open and close every time—it just keeps the flow moving and feels way faster.

That's only enabled by the difference in culture though, right? Japanese culture has a much higher emphasis on order and following the rules - I don't know that this "open-by-default" system would work in, for instance, the US.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#186

Post by numpad0 » Sat, May 17, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #125

aikinai wrote: post #88

The iOS and Android part was hard to follow, so I'm not sure if the article is wrong or just unclear. All iPhones since iPhone 7 support FeliCa regardless of the phone region. This is incredibly convenient for visitors to Japan. On the other hand, Android phones only support it if they are Japan-region phones.

Yes that is correct. Patents hold it back on Android. Apple just got themselves a licensing deal that apparently lets them just have it on all phones.

I think it's more like difference in commitment to product and sales model between Apple and every other phone manufacturers. Apple really commits deeply into making singular globally unified phones and rejecting pressures to make carrier branded bastard children of iPhone. None of Android phone manufacturers are as committed - even Google - and so unnecessary features gets removed from non-Japanese phones, even the same models were sold globally as well as in Japan(not always the case as Japanese businesspeople generally hate more to think about exports than about lost opportunities and there had historically been obscenely abundant supply of Japan-only electronics).

It's surprising that it can be added back on Pixels, I thought it would use something like factory generated certificates.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#187

Post by numpad0 » Sat, May 17, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

lorenzotenti wrote: post #160

What really stands out is the difference in design philosophy. In London, the gates are normally closed and only open if your Oyster card is valid. In Tokyo, the gates are open by default and only close if your card fails. You don’t have to wait for doors to open and close every time—it just keeps the flow moving and feels way faster.

They probably needed that delay to hold back users while payment is processed. Japanese gates were likewise shaped as they are, originally, to buy time to read the magnetic tape tickets.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#188

Post by robert3005 » Sat, May 17, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

lorenzotenti wrote: post #160

What really stands out is the difference in design philosophy. In London, the gates are normally closed and only open if your Oyster card is valid. In Tokyo, the gates are open by default and only close if your card fails. You don’t have to wait for doors to open and close every time—it just keeps the flow moving and feels way faster.

You don’t have to wait for the doors to close to be able to scan your ticket in London Underground. The gate will stay open and let you through. It’s a little bit awkward since you have to approach as you scan your ticket leading to your hand lagging behind

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#189

Post by neckro23 » Sat, May 17, 2025, 7:15 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #171

pauldino wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is really big in Japan (it's one of the few countries where it has a higher market share than in the US) which probably makes it more worthwhile for Apple

I do wonder who it is that has all of these android phones in the US (nearly 40% by the statistics). In my extended friend group only one person other than me uses an Android phone.

Android is overwhelmingly preferred by working-class people, in my experience. The phones are simply cheaper.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#190

Post by asimops » Sat, May 17, 2025, 7:24 PM UTC

Since all Pixel phones have the FeliCa build in, I would have loved for GrapheneOS to just enable that in their builds for all phones. It would have been one patch to a library call, so that it always returns true. But I found an issue where the team sadly dicided against it :( I still loved the system when visiting Japan and would wish that Germany had something alike.