While Japan is frequently held up as a bastion of innovation and technology, it is also a highly traditional society which often exhibits resistance to change.
The samurai-led Satsuma revolution in 1877 was largely waged in opposition to new technology.
Even though Satsuma's swords were no match against the guns of the emperor, little has changed in Japan concerning tradition.
For example, after a grueling three-year battle against the floppy disk, Japan has finally declared victory in its war against this antiquated digital storage technology.
In 2021, Digital Minister Taro Kono announced that Japan was going to challenge the over 1,000 national regulations that required the submission of all official documents on floppy disks.
On Wednesday, nearly three years later, he announced: ‘We have won the war on floppy disks!'
The war began because Japanese banks indicated that they were going to start charging the government 50,000 yen (around $300) for processing information like municipal payrolls on the disks.
For an idea of how ludicrous it is to continue using the floppy disks, consider this: Sony was the last diskette maker, and it stopped manufacturing floppy disks over a decade ago.
A three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk could accommodate up to just 1.44MB of data. More than 22,000 such disks would be needed to replicate a memory stick storing 32GB of information.
Imagine how much physical storage space they'll save with all that digital storage space.
You might think that Japan would rest now that the long war is over, but Mr. Kono is somewhat of a war hawk and has already instigated a new war against another antiquated technology that Japan refuses to abandon.
Fax Machines!
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