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Estonia is running its country like a tech company

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Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#91

Post by sccxy »

kristofferR wrote: post #77
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…

One fascinating difference between Estonia and Norway is that Norway doesn't have a digital ID card - we instead use a government single sign-on platform for vetted private login provider companies. The vast majority of people use BankID, a login system run by a consortium of most banks. It used to require a cumbersome 2FA device, but for the last 5 years it has also been available as a Sim Toolkit App, so most use t…

Estonia also uses Mobile-ID and it works same way as you described.

https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/mobile-id/

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#92

Post by lagadu »

znq wrote: post #5
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #2

We have recently registered a company in Estonia. The process was very smooth and easy. All hail Estonia, the small county that could! (Opening a business bank account is a lot of pain, so there is still room for improvement)

We have a business bank account with LHV. For us it was as easy as making an appointment, quickly flying there and walking into their main office in Tallinn. After ~30 minutes everything was set up. That was 3 years ago, though. Maybe things have changed?

Nope, I opened a business account with them in March this year. Same exact experience like you described.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#93

Post by rorykoehler »

vonmoltke wrote: post #89
jaydenseric wrote: post #57

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. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF uses her phone to pay for things and conside…

> 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.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#94

Post by piva00 »

vonmoltke wrote: post #89
jaydenseric wrote: post #57

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. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF uses her phone to pay for things and conside…

> 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 Brazil.

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.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#95

Post by mbeex »

romanovcode wrote: post #53
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, mostly because I think it's just practical for small markets (like ~1 million person countries) to band together but I remember in Estonia everyone always thought of themselves more as a Nordic country rather than a Baltic one

They have similar language to nordic ones, Yes. But the place itself feels and looks totally as Baltic country and there is absolutly nothing wrong with it. (I've been in all 3) I think the reason is that Estonia and Latvia used to be same country - Livonia but I might be wrong.

> They have similar language to nordic ones, Yes.

No :)

Estonian an Livonian are Finno-Ugric. They have a relation to Finnish (but in no way to Scandinavian languages) and Hungarian. This group ist vastly different from any other language in Europe including the Slavic languages. Moreover, Livonian is not to be considered as equivalent to Latvia - Latvian being the official language there.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#96

Post by shaki-dora »

buboard wrote: post #45

I found this podcast about estonia's digital economy very informative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTyOboVluxA It's interesting how the East of europe seems to have similar aspirations. Growing, poor or former poor countries (Estonia, latvia, Romania, bulgaria, cyprus, malta) are bullish on using the EU status to attract foreign investors and enable entrepreneurship, including lowering their taxes, while the west…

Eastern Europe may have advantages in terms of bureaucracy. It's far easier to experiment with the rules when you don't have a huge number of existing businesses/processes that need to be changed, very similar to how it's easier to change an API in a newish products vs, say, Windows.

BUT: Eastern Europe also has huge drawbacks. In countries like Poland, Hungary, or Bulgaria, your risk of abrupt changes in the law (see above) or simply ignorance of the rule of law, is somewhat elevated compared to France, the US, or Germany.

And while these countries want to attract foreign investors, if you actually want to spend significant time in the country, or hire foreigners to work there, you better make sure your neither dark-skinned nor jewish.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#97

Post by growlist »

hos234 wrote: post #69
znq wrote: post #4

I've run and invested in businesses in multiple countries (Spain, Germany, US, UAE, Sri Lanka). One of them (Mobile Jazz - a fully remote company) we've moved to Estonia in 2016. One of the best business decisions we've made admin-wise. While there are for sure better alternatives when it comes to "saving on taxes" (I'd say Estonia is in the European average with 20% corporate tax and an interesting taxation model on…

It barely has a million people. You have to compare it with other countries of similar size and population. Comparing it to Spain, Germany, US, UAE, Sri Lanka is like comparing mice to dogs, cows, elephants and blue whales. That said, ofcourse there are things that can be learnt and applied to similar sized towns, cities, states etc that want these features.

Perhaps the lesson is that decentralisation leads to better outcomes?

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#98

Post by vonmoltke »

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…

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 until that political resistance is addressed.

Edit: s/cars/cashless/

Android predictive autocorrect is worse than useless these days.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#99

Post by odiroot »

znq wrote: post #4

I've run and invested in businesses in multiple countries (Spain, Germany, US, UAE, Sri Lanka). One of them (Mobile Jazz - a fully remote company) we've moved to Estonia in 2016. One of the best business decisions we've made admin-wise. While there are for sure better alternatives when it comes to "saving on taxes" (I'd say Estonia is in the European average with 20% corporate tax and an interesting taxation model on…

Would you recommend Estonia for setting up a freelancing business -- as in establishing a legal entity for self-employment?

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#100

Post by pmjordan »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #30
gzer0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, one should probably have employees or customers physically in Estonia, otherwise the company tax residency might change into other jurisdictions.. IANAL. You no longer need physical presence with their e-Residency program. [1] https://e-resident.gov.ee

You no longer need physical presence to register your company and do business through the programme but you should still be very careful about taxation, tax residency whether personal or corporate gets very complex very fast and I highly recommend talking to a tax expert

Yes, the country/countries where your physical office(s) is/are located (or rather, where people - founders or employees - are doing the work that is the basis of the revenue on which you're generating a profit) will likely want a piece of the pie.

Certainly, a decade or so ago, it was popular to register a limited company in the UK whose physical presence was on the continent. Invariably, this meant dealing with both tax authorities.

It seems to have lost its attractiveness after laws for GmbH and similar were relaxed in various countries. Brexit has pretty much killed any remaining demand, at least for real companies. (As opposed to shell companies for tax evasion or money laundering purposes, for which the UK remains as popular as ever - and which are a major reason for big money backing Brexit, as the EU has been looking to crack down on the practice.)

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