Americans typically think they're the Bee's Knees, the ne plus ultra of everything. They're not. There is no location in the US that compares remotely to the Tokyo Ginza or the electronics markets in Taipei, and tho I don't know too much about Korea's electronics markets (other than they manufacture many of the top LCD panels) I think it's safe to assume they're as tech-mad as anyone else.
Ehh...Americans tend not to travel abroad, since there is so much travel to be had within our own borders or directly acrossed the border, so how would they know what Tokyo Ginza or Taipei is like? When we do travel abroad, we tend not to go where we might have to elbow our way through a crammed shopping center. More typically, we travel abroad to GET AWAY from those experiences and see something really cool. A consumer electronics mega-shopping center would not make most American's top 100 list of sights to see and thing to do abroad (including mine). About the only Americans who might ever find themselves in Taipei are those traveling on business.
In fact, more so in many cases. AFAIK, the average Korean broadband connection is 20-30 Mbps. Try doing that in the US.
If downtown Seattle spilled acrossed the whole of the United States (i.e. high-density urban sprawl from coast to coast), as most of South Korea is like, you would see 20Mbps and more, too. In fact, 20Mbit or higher is available in most large urban metros. I can get 10Mbit cable for $65/month in a semi-rural town with a population of 12,000 people, 2,000 dairy cows, and one million chickens. We're currently on the 5Mbit plan for $40/month (after $10 discount because we subscribe to cable TV also). Our DSL packages here go up to 10Mbit also, but they are nearly twice as expensive as cable, because telco in this area is provided by some small regional carrier, while cable is provided by Comcast.
Regarding the Chaebol, Korea is hardly unique in this aspect. One look at Japan's Keiretsu or America's re-consolidating telecom market, not to mention our non-existent enforcement of antitrust law, gives the lie to that assumption.
The discussion was about Korea, not Japan. I don't know what place America's domestic telecom market has in this discussion. Its one thing to assist your corporations domestically with tax breaks or arguably lax enforcement of your own anti-trust laws. Its quite another to assist your corporations in a clandestine effort to ruin foreign competitors in their own domestic markets. The latter is state-sponsored economic/industry sabotage, which is nearly an act of war.
Bill gates would have called it sound business practices... or in this case, sound government practices...
The ones at fault are the american and european governments for letting it happen.
I agree that American and European governments bear responsibility for its naive or misguided policies, but the fault or blame rests squarely with those countries who used deceptive ploys to deliberately inflict material harm upon our domestic markets and companies, and continue to reap spoils from it without consequence. Remember, the US does not dictate trade policy to anyone, and it often has little choice but to open US markets to certain imports or face potentially onerous sanctions, lawsuits, and other consequences.
Oh, and some products WERE superior... american cars were shit. Probably because of protective tariffs, so they didn't have to compete pricewise... they are only now catching up.
Japanese products were the exception. They were way ahead of countries like China, Malaysia, and Korea in terms of design and manufacturing standards. Japan may have engaged in much of the same state-sponsored dumping practices, but at least their products were not substandard, I'll give them that.
You never had japanese rice have you? it is FUCKING GOOD! No really, the best rice I EVER ATE. That stuff is a billion times better then the crap we call rice...
What does my culinary exposure to Japanese rice have to do with the price of tea in China (or rice in Japan, as it were)? I don't care whether Japanese rice is better or not, it has no material relevance.
What I don't understand is the dearth of 24" options. I bought my Dell 24" 3+ years ago. After these 3 years manufacturers still release groups of monitors where they release a 19" a 20" and a 22" monitor. Where are the 24" monitors? For that matter where are the 27" or the 30" monitors?
This I can answer with some certainty. In America, there are plenty of options above ~ 24", except we call them televisions. This is not a consumer 'savvyness' or technology adoption issue, but a consumer preference and product segmentation issue. Blame Pioneer, Kenwood, Denon, JVC, Sony, Yamaha, Panasonic, Hitachi, and other (mostly Japanese) companies for making yummy component-based home theatre and audio equipment all these years, which solidified consumer preference and attitudes about product segmentation years before the PC was a viable digital media/home entertainment platform.
We still view and use the PC mostly as a productivity tool, while we watch movies and television on plasmas, projection screens, DLPs, and whatnot, and listen to music/radio on audio equipment. We already have home theatre/entertainment systems with large screens, into which we can plug cable, satellite, DVD player, XBox, and PS. Why would we want to duplicate this capability on that thing we use to run Quicken or MS office?
The home theatre and audio market in the US has decades of traction to overcome, whereas PCs are just now bringing suitable capabilities, albiet at a premium. More than 80% of the US PC market is sub-$800 configurations, the majority being sub-$600 which do not bring suitable capabilities to match component DVD players, A/V receivers, and so on.
I'm not going to watch movies on some 30" PC monitor, or listen to music on some glorified PC speakers, when there is a 52" 720p/1080i widescreen rear-projection TV, Kenwood A/V receiver and CD changer, and a set of Infinity loudspeakers in the other room. I couldn't explain why anyone would.
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