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Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

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Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#71

Post by kelnos »

ak217 wrote: post #25
decimalenough wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).

My wife has a US-bought iPhone, and we tried to load some money onto a digital Suica card. The hardware is there, but the system wouldn't accept any of the credit cards or her debit card that she had registered with Apple Pay.

An Indian friend of mine (who lives in the US) told me it's similar to when he visits family in India; none of the digital transit cards work for him because the system won't accept his US payment cards.

(I have an Android phone which has the right FeliCa hardware, but it's disabled in software so Google doesn't have to pay the licensing for it.)

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#72

Post by kelnos »

rjh29 wrote: post #38
ak217 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).

Android doesn't support suica for public transport but you can still use Google Pay most of the time. Except when you randomly can't! Unlike other countries you still need to take a credit card (and maybe even some cash) as backup.

Android does support suica/felica, and many (most?) phones have the hardware for it, but most manufacturers will only pay the licensing fees for it for their Japanese SKUs, leaving other SKUs with a software lock.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#73

Post by 317070 »

kelnos wrote: post #66
ShinTakuya wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, this is commonplace in Australia too. I feel like you're describing a general safe country thing. I've lived in Japan so I know it's probably one of the safest places in the world, but I feel like what this thread describes is more US/Canada/some Euro countries being particularly dangerous, and not Japan being uniquely safe.

I think it's more high-trust than high-safety. Most American cities (and certainly suburbs) are quite safe, and have only been getting safer over the past decades. And yet we are constantly bombarded with fearmongering around children getting kidnapped on every street corner, every hour of the day. I'll absolutely agree that a place like Tokyo is safer for a child on their own than NYC or SF, but the gap isn't as wid…

It's not just kidnapping though. You also need road safety, or some level of pedestrian safety.

By far the most dangerous thing for kids, is traffic. And in many places that is the delimiter of their freedom.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#74

Post by dmos62 »

adventured wrote: post #50
rjh29 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are expensive by Japanese standards. Assuming you're American, you're benefitting massively from the exchange rate.

It's not the exchange rate. It's 30 years of economic destruction and currency devaluation as the end result of horrific spending policies. If Japan doesn't right the ship, they'll sink into middle income territory over the next 30 years. Poland and Greece are now just slightly below them in GDP per capita - and Lithuania is above them (unthinkable circa the mid 1990s). Realistically Japan is very close to being a se…

> Poland and Greece are now just slightly below them in GDP per capita - and Lithuania is above them (unthinkable circa the mid 1990s)

Re Poland and Lithuania: USSR collapsed in early 90s, and many would have been forgiven for thinking that these countries would continue to live in poverty, which they obviously didn't. Notably, USSR was a donut empire where the peripheral regions were richer and more educated than the heartland. That's also why the collapse of USSR started there. Sarah Paine talks about that.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#75

Post by bandrami »

satvikpendem wrote: post #9

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.

7/11 has had hot prepared food for decades in the US. Pizza, meat pies, rollers, and those hot dogs

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#77

Post by decimalenough »

vibekoter wrote: post #68
rjh29 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android doesn't support suica for public transport but you can still use Google Pay most of the time. Except when you randomly can't! Unlike other countries you still need to take a credit card (and maybe even some cash) as backup.

"Unlike other countries you still need to take a credit card (and maybe even some cash) as backup" "still" I take a reliable CC and cash any fucking day over Apple and Google Pay or any shit payment "app" like Revolut which simply blocks you out of your account if on a device they seem to not like / that is not attested, while preventing browser-based usage. You stupid tech bros. Appps, apps, apps, everything via an…

> You stupid tech bros

You realize you're posting this on Hacker News, yes?

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#78

Post by Dracophoenix »

kelnos wrote: post #71
ak217 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).

My wife has a US-bought iPhone, and we tried to load some money onto a digital Suica card. The hardware is there, but the system wouldn't accept any of the credit cards or her debit card that she had registered with Apple Pay. An Indian friend of mine (who lives in the US) told me it's similar to when he visits family in India; none of the digital transit cards work for him because the system won't accept his US paym…

Visa and (to an extent) Mastercard have been known to block transactions from their foreign-issued credit cards to digital Suica and PASMO cards. US issued Amex and Discover cards (at least prior to the latter's acquisition by Capital One) use JCB's merchant network in Japan, and thus receive the same treatment as any other JCB-branded card.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#79

Post by charcircuit »

m0llusk wrote: post #17
satvikpendem wrote: post #9

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.

The waste generated is also a major challenge. Having fresh food always ready means trashing a lot of meals. In the US there are networks of food banks and such, but it can still be difficult to keep up with the flow of unpurchased food that is no longer fresh.

You can just throw food in the garbage.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#80

Post by klausa »

Klonoar wrote: post #27
dreamcompiler wrote: post #16

I almost never go to a 7/11 in the US but every time I go to Japan I visit a 7/11 at least once a day. No matter where you are in Japan there's likely a 7/11 within walking distance and besides the usual assortment of drinks and snacks you can get quick full meals there of high quality. https://thisis-japan.com/7-eleven-japan-guide-2025/

Conbini meals only register as "high quality" to you because your comparison point (e.g, American 7-11) is an abysmal excuse for food. The food is, in reality, not that special.

This hot take, along with the "oh you can get better chicken than FamiChiki almost anywhere in Japan", drives me _nuts_, even as I live in Tokyo.

Yes! There are better options available if I want to sit down for a meal, or even just wait for a couple of minutes for someone to fry me a piece of chicken to order.

That's _not the point_! Both the SEJ meals, and FamiChiki, are _fantastic_ for what they are — available in literally tens of thousands of locations across the country, and available _instantly_, 24/7.

They're both _not that special_ if you compare them to a "real" restaurant (though, and I will die on this hill, FamiChiki is hands-down better than a good ~80% of chicken I would get in a restaurant in my home country; but that's a somewhat different conversation).

But if you compare them with convenience store meals available elsewhere in the world (especially in the broadly understood West), they still _are_ pretty damn special.

(And don't get me started on the 7-11 frozen pizzas from Da Isa. Those, reheated in a Balmuda also clear a good 75% of "real" pizzerias back home, and not because pizzerias in Berlin or Warsaw are particularly bad!)

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