Comment by 1776smithadam
1 day ago
> Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan?
You're being snarky but it's obvious you're speaking from the prospective of a foreign tourist who has only been to Tokyo and major cities while not being able to speak Japanese.
You're making a strong but false generalisations as a tourist. The tourist aspect is important because of the anthropic principle. If you were a local who was in the inaka where Uber doesn't operate and you had to reserve a taxi by phone in Japanese, you'd have an entirely different experience.
Japanese people are notoriously introverted and shy. That's why people don't make small talk especially on a taxi. Plus, if they presume you're a tourist who doesn't speak Japanese, why bother? It's also not true that it's "your space". Just because the driver and other service people aren't confronting you on your behavior doesn't mean it's socially approved behavior. Japanese people silently judged and tourists can't even notice. There is an unspoken rule you keep your conversation with your fellow passenger private and quiet. Even wearing a perfume/cologne in a communal space, which a taxi is, can be considered rude.
If the reason people prefer Waymo is because they're introverted and not just avoid socializing but avoid being the presence of other people alltogether, then it's entirely possible for Waymo to do okay in Japan.
> The space in the car is, factually, your space.
This such an arrogant Westerner thing to think and say. Until you can step out of that, you will never understand Japan like you think you do.
So you are saying that as a Japanese ordering a Japanese by phone, that your driver would: - happily speak on the phone while driving - listen to music - open the window to cool himself without asking if you're OK with that?
(i.e. all the things drivers in the best do; also, when I said that the space in a taxi is factually the clients space I didn't imply that the client can do whatever he wants - rather that the client can enjoy that space undisturbed; you only zoned in on the part of the client creating disturbance, which I can see though is an issue with tourists in Japan.)
I find that hard to believe. But open to be proven otherwise if you can cite such occurrences.
My other point that we in the west suck still seems to hold true: even if your point is true and I may get better treatment in Japan only as a tourist in a big city, you can rest assured that no Japanese in a western big city will get any kind of better treatment. Drivers in the west are usually impolite equally to everyone.