>Japan is by far the absolute worst country when it comes to tech now.

No, it really isn't at all. It's better than the US in many ways:

1. Eating out. At many Japanese restaurants, you have a tablet computer at your table, or you get a QR code to order on your phone. You use the tablet/web app (which admittedly doesn't always have the greatest UI, esp when you switch to English) to order your food and maybe pay. It's not just big chains like Jonathan's; you'll even see this sometimes at small non-chain restaurants with 1 or 2 workers. This kind of tech is mostly unheard of in the US; you have to verbally tell your order to some annoyed worker and hope they don't screw it up, and then they expect a gigantic "tip" for simply doing their job. Partially thanks to the much lower staffing needed at Japanese restaurants, it's quite inexpensive to eat out.

2. Toilets: they all have electronic controls to spray your butt after you poop. You can select water pressure, activate seat heating, etc. These washlets as they're called are actually available in the US, but no one buys them except maybe Japanese expats. Even after the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020, Americans steadfastly refuse to improve their hygiene and adopt this technology.

3. Public transit fare cards: in Japan, virtually every public transit system uses "IC cards" based on the Felica NFC chip. It's twice as fast as other NFC technologies, so it gets people through fare gates quicker, which is critical in the crowded Tokyo subways. These stored-value cards can mostly be used nationwide (tip: get a Suica or Pasmo card, they're good almost everywhere). In addition to train fares, you can also use them to pay for vending machines, many restaurants, and lots more. On top of this, the Felica chip is built into Japan-market smartphones, so you can do all this with your phone instead of a card. In the US, the NYC metro system still uses magnetic stripe cards, and while the DC system is more advanced (using stored-value cards that aren't as fast as Japan's), like all other transit systems in the US, the cards are only good on that one transit system in one city, and for nothing else at all.

4. Remote-control air-conditioners. Called "mini-split" in the US, the typical A/C units in Japan are only good for one room, but they come with a remote control and have many functions: cooling, heating, dehumidification, etc. You can control whether the vents are fixed in one direction or oscillate. I'm sure I've missed many other useful functions. Since the A/Cs are room-sized, you don't have to waste energy cooling/heating rooms you're not using at the moment, or you can set them differently. These systems have become increasingly popular in the US, especially for retrofitting older buildings that don't have ducts.

5. Interpersonal messaging. In Japan, everyone uses LINE. It's not perfect, but it has great privacy and lots of features. In the US, most people are still using telephone-number-based SMS from the 1990s. The US is decades behind on basic communications, easily the worst in the world. I don't think I need to go any further here.

6. Bullet trains. Japan leads the world, and will have the world's first serious maglev train between Tokyo and Nagoya in around 5 years. The US doesn't have anything to speak of.

7. Combination washer/dryers. Americans think this is a brand-new thing, but they've been here in Japan for many years now and are very common at the higher-end.

8. Chip manufacturing. The US only has Intel, and TSMC is trying to expand there with government subsidies but it's not going well at all. Japan has Renesas and TSMC is expanding here too, with far better success. Time will tell how this pans out, but given how dysfunctional US society and politics are these days, I wouldn't bet on the US doing well here.