Sorry, but it is not "patriotic duty." I've lived in Japan for over 20 years and most markets are not locked up. There is a sense of community in Japan. Patriotism is not teary-eyed nonsense looking at a colored cloth. It's a sense of living within a society and doing things that benefit a society that's been around for over 1,200 years.

Japan is small, has no resources, half the population of the US packed into a place the size of California. Police don't kill people and a convenience store robbery (no one gets hurt) is national news.

The used book business in Japan is huge. People read in Japan; they like books and magazines. They like the touch of paper. It's the most widely read population in the world. People stand at bookstores and read and read and read. The pricing model assures that small publishers exist and a wide variety of books and authors can be published. They are not all gobbled up by conglomerates.

Japan can do business in Japan however it chooses.

Try having a fact-based discussion with a woman and see where it gets you.

On second thought, that doesn't work with men either . . .

I'm moving and my new place has 200Mbps down/100Mbps up fiber, so that's an upgrade from the 100Mbps I've had for about 15 years. And the price is going down to about US$38/month. Not bad, huh? I could choose 1 Gbps, since everywhere has been upgraded with it for years now, but it would only be useful for content inside the country. The infrastructure is far more advanced than the U.S.

Of course there are no caps and no provider-conspired speed throttling. I've never had a provider-caused outage in 20 years of internet service.

That's that service level and pricing that competition has created over time in Japan. I'm in a small town, so don't even think about the "U.S. is too big" reply. Every time I go the U.S. I'm shocked at the level of service. You are really under the thumb of the internet provider mafia.

You need to vote in representatives that will actually to start representing you. I don't see any hope for you without that.

I couldn't even begin to comment on all of the misinformation and wrong assumptions posted.

Suffice it to say that the Japan has existed as an entity for well over 1,200 years and the stories about the future "last Japanese person alive" probably started with the first written records of Japan.

Japan has survived events that ended other civilizations, so they will find a way to survive and thrive with less people.

"There is plenty of violent crime in Japan."

No there isn't. I've lived in Japan for over 20 years and never once ever felt the slightest apprehension anywhere, any place, any time of the day of night, period. I live a life free of fear of having to watch my wallet, look over my shoulder, or worry that i might stumble into the wrong neighborhood.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Her are those details:

I live in Japan and not in the middle of a city. I'm in a suburban area and have lived in what would be considered almost rural at one time.

I've had fiber for over 13 years. The only time I've ever had a service interruption was during the major earthquake 3 years ago. Internet came back up within an hour, though. That was the only time I've had a power outage too, in over 22 years of living in Japan.

I was in several major cities the southeast U.S. - Orlando, Atlanta, Nashville, etc. I needed to ftp data to my servers and it was almost impossible. So slow that I had to give up and wait until I returned home. I was at a friend's house and he lost internet service at least once per week. He had to scream answers for 5 minutes through his phone to a silly automated service before he could talk to a person. He said he has to do it weekly...

I couldn't get any emails from Asia through his connection. They're all blocked, and those were from the major ISP's in Japan - NTT and Softbank. Blocked! Every foreign web server was like pulling teeth.

Public WiFi was, well, pathetic.

It has nothing to do with size of the country. I had faster, more reliable service in the middle of nowhere surrounded by rice paddies in Japan 10 years ago than exists in U.S. urban areas now.

The reason is that there is competition in Japan. No area franchises. It's a free country.

I just spent three weeks in the U.S.

The internet service was like being in a third-world country, but no one would believe it if you told them.

Type it; print it; deliver it.

It worked for generations.

Millions of people live like that now in Tokyo. No big deal.
You can't even let the water run while brushing your teeth.

wearable devices are a hit compared to the rate of married couples who stay together. Does that mean marriage is a fad?

I've lived in Japan for over 20 years and I, like probably most people in Japan, didn't know it even existed.

Patent attorneys and a marketing department?
It has to be true because you can't make up shit like this.

The people who programmed "the computer" were better.

Maybe they should have told the court that they had no authority to charge or even know any information about the case or the defendant's actions since national security and the safety of entire free world was at stake. That seems to scare every other court off, right?

That's the iPhone market percentage in Japan, but 8 out of the 10 most popular smartphones sold for the last four months are iPhones. So yes, the iPhone market share is increasing.

Oh, and the "East-Asian concept of 'face'..." post above is utter nonsense. The real esoteric reason it's popular is because people just "like" it.