Japan resident since 1983. I read Japanese fluently, but I also hate reserving Shinkansen tickets online. When I want to reserve, say, a one-way ticket from Yokohama to Osaka, I have to click through multiple popups warning me that I cannot pick up the tickets in Kyushu or Hokkaido (or something like that, I don’t remember the details) and various other things irrelevant to my trip. When I can, I prefer to buy paper tickets from the machines in the station; the interface is much better.
In addition to the various reasons mentioned by others, this inefficiency is partly the result of government-led deregulation aimed at promoting competition. JR used to be JNR, a single nationalized railway system. It was unified but customer-unfriendly, losing money, and prone to labor disputes. When it was privatized in 1987, it was divided into six companies by region (plus a separate nationwide freight company). While the various JR companies mostly cooperate with each other, and service has indeed improved overall (stations are much nicer than they used to be), the decentralization also leads to problems, including insufficient coordination among the companies about reservations and ticketing.
Another unintended consequence of deregulation has been the complexity and inefficiency of payments at the retail level. While 7-Eleven convenience stores accept several dozen types of digital payment [1], most retailers can afford to handle at most a few. As a result, different stores accept different combinations of payment methods. Some (including a small restaurant near my home where I eat once or twice a week) accept only cash, while others accept only digital payments (some forms, that is) and refuse cash-only customers. There’s a large department store near my home where I can pay with Suica on some floors but not on others.
It’s not unusual to get stuck in line at a cash register while the teller and a customer ahead try to figure out how the customer can pay.
It’s a mess.
[1] https://money-creditcard.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/seve...
In addition to the various reasons mentioned by others, this inefficiency is partly the result of government-led deregulation aimed at promoting competition. JR used to be JNR, a single nationalized railway system. It was unified but customer-unfriendly, losing money, and prone to labor disputes. When it was privatized in 1987, it was divided into six companies by region (plus a separate nationwide freight company). While the various JR companies mostly cooperate with each other, and service has indeed improved overall (stations are much nicer than they used to be), the decentralization also leads to problems, including insufficient coordination among the companies about reservations and ticketing.
Another unintended consequence of deregulation has been the complexity and inefficiency of payments at the retail level. While 7-Eleven convenience stores accept several dozen types of digital payment [1], most retailers can afford to handle at most a few. As a result, different stores accept different combinations of payment methods. Some (including a small restaurant near my home where I eat once or twice a week) accept only cash, while others accept only digital payments (some forms, that is) and refuse cash-only customers. There’s a large department store near my home where I can pay with Suica on some floors but not on others.
It’s not unusual to get stuck in line at a cash register while the teller and a customer ahead try to figure out how the customer can pay.
It’s a mess.
[1] https://money-creditcard.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/seve...