
Estonia is running its country like a tech company - lev272
https://qz.com/1535549/living-on-the-blockchain-is-a-game-changer-for-estonian-citizens/
======
juskrey
I had a pretty intense honeymoon with Estonia, even had a relatively popular
blog on e-residency, have visited Estonia twice (great experience btw)..

And, after four years, I have reopened my company in UK and trying to
liquidate my Estonian one (today I have received a denial letter which says
that only Estonian citizen can close my company)..

In short: Vague frequently changing rules, introduction of strange complex
regulations over time (e.g. contact person, management board member tax which
is kinda avoidable or not at the same time - "Schrodinger tax").. Expensive
business services and accountants (yes, US and UK are cheaper!), volatile tax
rules interpretations.. Lack of googlable good information overall, and local
accountants are not that hi level pros in nomadic IT matters at all. Also
totally non-cooperative Estonian banks.

Upon all of that, UK manages doing everything without fragile e-card, which,
honestly, adds more anxiety over access loss instead of benefits. Has TONS AND
TONS of proper official information with tutorials. Generations of good
accountants and stable business and tax regulations.

~~~
repomies691
Similar experience with Estonia. It is way overhyped to what it is in
practice. It is quite tiny and poor country, and understandably they try to
attract foreign business and investors. However just some e-residency card
which is not that useful in practice doesn't solve that. The general operating
environment feels like that old fusty soviet union, and that is just not that
easy problem to solve.

~~~
juskrey
Not that it really feels like old Soviet (I was born in really "Old Soviet"
one), but it surely has a bad PR taste targeted on "influencers", VC media and
fellow bureaucrats from other countries (like they constantly trying to win
some bureaucratic Oscar or something), instead of entrepreneurs, and all of
that have become very irritating in the last couple of years.

------
znq
I've run and invested in businesses in multiple countries (Spain, Germany, US,
UAE, Sri Lanka). One of them (Mobile Jazz - a fully remote company) we've
moved to Estonia in 2016. One of the best business decisions we've made admin-
wise. While there are for sure better alternatives when it comes to "saving on
taxes" (I'd say Estonia is in the European average with 20% corporate tax and
an interesting taxation model on capital distribution), it is definitely a
huge improvement when it comes to dealing with authorities compared to
virtually elsewhere in the world, based on what I've experienced myself of
heard from others. Estonian people speak really good English. Typically things
just work as they should and it something doesn't, they're super fast in
responding and very eager to solve the problem for you. While I don't have
visibility on everything that happens in the country, in terms of how they
handle their bureaucracy, they're certainly a role model for other countries.

~~~
AhtiK
Important to note that this 20% corporate tax is applied to the taxable
payment (e.g. dividend payouts).

There are no taxes to pay for the yearly profit, which makes it much easier
for companies that do plan to reinvest the income over the years or just hold
it.

Also, one should probably have employees or customers physically in Estonia,
otherwise the company tax residency might change into other jurisdictions..
IANAL.

I'm curious if there are any other EU countries with a similar flexibility
(corporate income tax not applied until the "payout event")?

~~~
gzer0
> Also, one should probably have employees or customers physically in Estonia,
> otherwise the company tax residency might change into other jurisdictions..
> IANAL.

You no longer need physical presence with their e-Residency program.

[1] [https://e-resident.gov.ee](https://e-resident.gov.ee)

~~~
atlasunshrugged
You no longer need physical presence to register your company and do business
through the programme but you should still be very careful about taxation, tax
residency whether personal or corporate gets very complex very fast and I
highly recommend talking to a tax expert

~~~
pmjordan
Yes, the country/countries where your physical office(s) is/are located (or
rather, where people - founders or employees - are doing the work that is the
basis of the revenue on which you're generating a profit) will likely want a
piece of the pie.

Certainly, a decade or so ago, it was popular to register a limited company in
the UK whose physical presence was on the continent. Invariably, this meant
dealing with both tax authorities.

It seems to have lost its attractiveness after laws for GmbH and similar were
relaxed in various countries. Brexit has pretty much killed any remaining
demand, at least for real companies. (As opposed to shell companies for tax
evasion or money laundering purposes, for which the UK remains as popular as
ever - and which are a major reason for big money backing Brexit, as the EU
has been looking to crack down on the practice.)

------
socialdemocrat
As a Norwegian I can relate to many things written here. Estonia is clearly
ahead of us but this thing of not being the innovator but still using off the
shelf technology was something I was forced to reflect upon while living in
the US 15 years ago.

It was surprising how the country behind so much technology innovation was so
bad at using it. It was noticeable both in the private and public sector.

It was something that I was later reminded of when reading guns, germs and
steel. The author Jared Diamond remarked that the technological progress of
any society is not primarily decided by your ability to innovate but by your
ability to adopt and use the inventions of others. As he remarks, most
innovation happens outside your own country, so it is the ability to learn
from others which matters most.

A thing I think people should be aware of when obsessing about having the most
cutting edge researchers rather than a technology literate population.

~~~
jaydenseric
America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was
blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train
card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an
old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my
signature. In Australia it's all wireless payWave or PayPass. My Chinese GF
uses her phone to pay for things and considers me old fashioned for using a
card.

~~~
vonmoltke
> America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was
> blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a
> train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and
> pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked
> for my signature.

America is very backwards because of one thing that happened to you that has
literally never happened to me in the 21+ years I have been an adult here?

How did you even find a human to pay? I have always used a ticket vending
machine at SFO.

~~~
rorykoehler
Cheques haven't even existed for 15+ years here in Ireland. America is quite
slow on the uptake of tech considering they are arguably the most disruptive
innovators in the world as a country.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I haven’t used checks routinely for the last 20 years in the states. I’m
always really annoyed when some random niche activity requires it and can’t
accept an online transfer. Then I have to go to the bank and get a temporary
one.

~~~
wenc
Checks still have lower transaction fees for large amounts than most
electronic forms do payment (cost: a postage stamp).

I was looking for electronic ways to send a substantial wad of money
domestically once and almost all electronic transfer providers wanted a
percentage.

Would be interested to know if there are any online services that can match
the transaction fee of a check.

~~~
easymodex
Cryptocurrencies.

------
atlasunshrugged
I had a chance to work for the Estonian government for a brief while (headed
up business development for e-Residency). While a few things may be overblown
about their e-gov initiatives (I'm thinking some of the blockchain hype that
foreign journalists didn't really fact check) they really have done an
incredible job making their business environment accessible for foreigners.
There really is a strong mentality of delivering government services with the
end user as the customer mentality rather than the usual bureaucratic nonsense
I was used to running businesses in the U.S. and Germany.

~~~
anilakar
Germany and Estonia have two completely opposing views when it comes to
personal information, and the Estonian way is the way to success.

OTOH, the issue with USA is the conflict of interest between the public and
private sector. Turbotax is a prime example.

~~~
majewsky
As a German, I don't think the issue is with our handling of personal data.
The real issue is Kleinstaaterei, a not-quite-translatable word that describes
every small administrative entity insisting on doing its own thing and failing
to see the bigger picture.

What today is Germany used to be about 100 separate nations until 1871, and a
still somewhat loose federation until 1918. I think the mentality from that
time is still pervasive today in many areas, particularly in bureaucracy.

Add to that that Germany is large enough to make the other EU countries play
by its rules most of the time. That removes incentive to overcome nonsensical
idiosyncrasies. Estonia is under a lot more pressure here because they cannot
win by weight alone.

~~~
skeletal88
I've heard that Germans are very skeptical about sharing data and have lots of
fears about privacy.

Here in Estonia our government systems work efficiently because our data is
shared between government departments and ministries in a safe way. There is
only one place that stores the addresses of people, there is only one place
that has knows about the cars or properties I own and so on. There is a law
against asking people who interact with the state for data that it already
has.

~~~
thcsa
>There is a law against asking people who interact with the state for data
that it already has.

I find that very interesting. Could you provide a link?

------
dimitar
No opinion on Estonia and its e-government, but running a country like a tech
company sounds like a plot of a comedy set in a dystopia. I certainly hope
that Estonia is ran better than most tech company

Tech companies have many problems that I don't want see in a Government:

\- Security breaches (and just like every other tech company Bulgaria recently
had a dump of the personal data of 5 million citizens)

\- Privacy issues, like contractors listening in on sounds recorded by their
devices

\- tons of intrusive ads

\- discrinatory pricing

\- products people rely on being killed off for no reason

\- hype-, and resume-driven development

\- general lack of accountability, masked with trendy but misunderstood
methodologies like Agile, Scrum

\- move fast and break things works for Facebook, but not for health insurance
software

Tech companies fail all the time, but the pieces are picked up by investors,
yet governments cannot afford to fail in the same way.

~~~
buboard
Most countries are ran far worse than a company. If citizens had the option to
freely jump between countries, most of them would go bankrupt, that's why they
rely on coercion. Very few countries are ran efficiently and they re typically
very small like Singapore.

~~~
ahartmetz
Usually only the country one would move _to_ is restricting movement. So what
the hell are you talking about?

~~~
RealityVoid
Obviously, lots of countries people would move _from_ would restrict movement
as well. See countries from the former communist block.

------
pavlov
If you're thinking about starting a company in Estonia under the "e-residency"
program, you should know that Estonian banks have recently become very
skeptical about opening bank accounts for foreigners. It's not enough that you
have an Estonian corporation, you'll probably be expected to demonstrate that
your business has actual ties to Estonia.

Finnish entrepreneurs are being denied bank accounts despite the close ties of
the two countries:
[https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000006279056.html](https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000006279056.html)
(Article in Finnish only, sorry)

The background for this change is a huge money laundering scandal where
Estonian banks took in Russian money over decades with very few questions
asked... It sucks that "little guy" startup founders are the ones getting
excluded, but that's how it goes.

~~~
lagadu
How recently? I opened an account for my Estonian company as an e-resident
(from the EU) in Q1 2019 and it took a grand total of ~40 minutes at the bank
to get everything working. I had to visit the bank HQ in person but the whole
process was really really smooth sailing.

~~~
marcosdumay
It doesn't really matter how smooth it is, the entire point of e-residency is
lost if you have to personally go there once in a while.

The fact that the meeting only takes 40 minutes is just extra injury if you
had to travel 6000km to get there.

~~~
lagadu
To be clear, I did that because I wanted the convenience of having Leapin to
also have access to my accounts so they'd handle my invoicing and expenses
without any significant trouble for me (ie. sending them the account movements
periodically). Originally I had an electronic payments account in a Finnish
bank and for that I didn't have to travel anywhere but I needed a full bank
account so I'd be able to pay dividends into it so I went there. If I just
wanted to pay myself via salary I wouldn't have needed to travel there at all
but I'd rather my income be via dividends than via a salary because of tax
purposes in my country of residence.

That said, I could've used a business account opened in other banks (including
outside of Estonia) to do that but I'd be missing out on the convenience that
is them having access to the account.

------
api_or_ipa
I've heard so much about Estonia's digital economy, but I struggle to see the
effect it has on it's own economy. Now, my data might be bad, but a cursory
look at Estonia's GDP growth rate shows perfectly normal growth alongside
Lithuania and Latvia [0]. Using Latvia and Lithuania to control for a digital
economy, Estonia should see greater growth, but it doesn't. If going head-
first into a digital economy had a significant pay-off, it should show up in
the data. Until it does, I'm still sceptical.

0:
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:EST:LVA:LTU&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false)

~~~
alko4141
Lithuania itself is pretty good at digital economy and has pretty strong
fintech scene for the country that size.

------
buboard
I found this podcast about estonia's digital economy very informative

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTyOboVluxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTyOboVluxA)

It's interesting how the East of europe seems to have similar aspirations.
Growing, poor or former poor countries (Estonia, latvia, Romania, bulgaria,
cyprus, malta) are bullish on using the EU status to attract foreign investors
and enable entrepreneurship, including lowering their taxes, while the west of
EU seems to be doing the exact opposite, sending their entrepreneurs abroad.

~~~
shaki-dora
Eastern Europe may have advantages in terms of bureaucracy. It's far easier to
experiment with the rules when you don't have a huge number of existing
businesses/processes that need to be changed, very similar to how it's easier
to change an API in a newish products vs, say, _Windows_.

BUT: Eastern Europe also has huge drawbacks. In countries like Poland,
Hungary, or Bulgaria, your risk of abrupt changes in the law (see above) or
simply ignorance of the rule of law, is somewhat elevated compared to France,
the US, or Germany.

And while these countries want to attract foreign investors, if you actually
want to spend significant time in the country, or hire foreigners to work
there, you better make sure your neither dark-skinned nor jewish.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
We have recently registered a company in Estonia. The process was very smooth
and easy. All hail Estonia, the small county that could!

(Opening a business bank account is a lot of pain, so there is still room for
improvement)

~~~
znq
We have a business bank account with LHV. For us it was as easy as making an
appointment, quickly flying there and walking into their main office in
Tallinn. After ~30 minutes everything was set up.

That was 3 years ago, though. Maybe things have changed?

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Thing is, we are from Russia. And LHV requires some "proof of our company
connection with Estonia economy, like existing contract or utility bills".
What proof can there be if the company is just started and not fully
operational without bank account (hence, no contracts) and is not physically
present in Estonia (hence, no utility bills)?

It sucks being Russian these days because of our warmongering dictator. :-/

~~~
corford
I've heard a borderless account with TransferWise can be a quick, painless
route

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
That's what we ended up with. So far the experience itself was good, but
unfortunately it does not solve all our banking needs: for example, to receive
payouts from Google Play you need your bank to be in the same country that a
company is incorporated in. Since TransferWise is in Germany, it just doesn't
work for Estonian companies.

We didn't yet publish our software in Apple App Store, but I've heard that it
could be a problem there, too.

~~~
kuratkull
TransferWise is an Estonian startup btw and works great here.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Probably, but it provides a German IBAN number, and that makes it impossible
to use for Google Play payouts

------
anilakar
Rememeber: We're talking about a country that had to be bootstrapped after the
fall of Soviet Union. They have had very little legacy (as in "old but not old
enough to warrant a replacement") tech and legislation to deal with.

My personal favorite is their wireless PSTN: Take existing NMT technology and
give people tabletop terminals that will accommodate ordinary analog phones.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
I had a friend working in Indonesia in the 90s, on Sumbawa. He mentioned how
the locals had DVD players, but they had skipped ever having VCRs. I wonder
what it looks for them now. Are they all on streaming services, or do they
still use 90s era DVD players. I wonder what Estonia will look like in 20
years.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Indonesia has incredible mobile penetration rates (133% this year), so odds
are they're streaming.

[https://www.slideshare.net/DataReportal/digital-2019-indones...](https://www.slideshare.net/DataReportal/digital-2019-indonesia-
january-2019-v01)

------
jaclaz
I find more intriguing/interesting than the whole actual Estonian
e-id/whatever technological achievements, that the President of a country
writes an article (of course not very critical on the way the governement
administration is managed) on qz.com.

~~~
dna_polymerase
See also, Erdogan on WSJ: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-is-stepping-up-
where-oth...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-is-stepping-up-where-others-
fail-to-act-11571093850)

~~~
jaclaz
Yep, though I wouldn't personally put the Wall Street Journal on the same
level as qz.

That they (WSJ) published Erdogan's piece is (to me) perplexing, but for
completely different reasons.

This one on qz.com seems, at least to me, nothing different from the several
"puff" articles we have read in the last few years about the digital
"revolution" in Estonia (and e-residency, etc.), but till now they were all or
almost all by either enthusiasts/futurists/thintankers or by people directly
or indirectly involved in the program at a much lower level than the
President.

Personally I always had the feeling that these pieces are not entirely unlike
the good ol' gnome business plan:

1) get digital in Estonia (id, residency, etc.)

2) ?

3) profit

No doubts that there may be a number of non-Estonians that may benefit from
the one or the other provisions of the program, but all in all they should be
a niche of "digital nomads" and/or "digital only" very small firms.

~~~
atlasunshrugged
Love the gnome business plan, I'm a huge South Park fan.

But I do think there is real value in it for some people (especially digital
nomads) but things like e-Residency running a company remotely definitely
aren't going to benefit everyone, building a solution that solves every
person's problem is a crazy undertaking

------
thrwoew4324
Taking the govt. services online is generally a good idea, but there are a lot
of minefields along the way and is inherently tied to the country in question.

I can only speak from the context of India where many things have indeed moved
online, but are not exactly accessible. For one thing, they are essentially
restricted to a small class of English speakers - which is expected since the
English-speaking elite have a monopoly on education and thus technological
literacy. This has meant that all the small shops which are now forced to file
GST invoices (3 times a month ?) need to hire touts of some kind to get their
work done. There are touts for everything, since very few people have
computers or the necessary skills to use them - touts for filling in passport
applications, for filling in DL forms etc.... and frankly it's all very
frustrating, since you'll have to take a printout of the online application
and visit some Indian Babu anyway.

Since "Indians" have been decided by the rulers to be essentially corrupt, it
has also meant that there is no escape from the inflexibility of the
straightjacket that is the Indian bureaucracy. Classic case of extremely poor
people employed as manual labour being denied food rations because their
fingerprints don't match that on record, or simply because the cellular data
is patchy has quickly been covered by the UIDAI and their cronies in the
government.

The language issue also shows up often because, after 70 years of so-called
independence, the country has yet to create a unified transliteration scheme
to go along with its "destroy all Indian languages" policy... and different
transliterations of brahmi (for instance "sri" and "sree" are both the same
श्री) often require absurd name-change announcements and numerous "letters" to
random officers (and the usual palm greasing) in order to get access to
services.

For much of India's "independence" a extractive state run for a handful of
elites generally kept away from governance while its elites enjoyed vacations
abroad and went to hospitals in Vienna (other than passing insane,
unenforceable laws). I'm generally afraid what the deeply rooted colonial
mindset will give rise to, now that it has also has access to technology.
UIDAI and its sister schemes was and remains a rather scary venture with what
appears to be a view of replicating China's draconian policies.

~~~
sbmthakur
You are forgetting that Estonia comes nowhere close to India in terms of
population and literacy. India is now estimated to have 125 million(and
increasing) English speakers. Not sure if all of them are part of "elite" that
you're talking about.

------
seddona
Anybody got experience in UK vs Estonia? I have lived and run companies in the
UK and USA. The UK is light years ahead of the US in terms of all online
interactions with the government. It's also been a long time since I have done
any paper-based interaction with the government in the UK, the online systems
have been really good for years.

Curious how it compares to Estonia.

~~~
atlasunshrugged
I don't have a UK/Estonia company but saw the comparisons a lot when I was
working for e-Residency. My understanding is that it's pretty comparable in
terms of being all online, solid tax structure, etc. For me the two biggest
factors would be - where are my clients and how much do I care about having a
company in the EU. If most of your clients/employees/ops are in the UK, I
would probably keep it there, if they're in the EU or being part of the EU is
important to you, I would consider Estonia (plus the instability of Brexit
throws a bit of a wrench into the equation)

------
jkingsbery
"For some weird and unexplainable reason, people normally expect better
services from private companies than from their own governments."

Right or wrong, it's not that unexplainable. People leave their cell phone
carrier over bad customer service. They buy their things from a different
website because of poor service, or go to a different store. It's cheap to
change your allegiance to a different brand. It's a lot more expensive to
change your allegiance to a different government. Governments in most places
in the world have little incentive to improve.

Governments and private companies are both institutions, they just face
different incentive structures. Governments aren't somehow magically protected
from the people that run them having incentives.

~~~
disordinary
Surely democracy is an incentive to improve.

~~~
jkingsbery
I would partially agree with that. An elected official has incentive to remain
popular, or a challenger will win the next election. But in the US, much
(most?) of the "government" is non-elected bureaucracy that doesn't even
change with a change in the party in control.

------
sgt3v
When EKRE rules over, it will change dramatically to opposite direction.

------
Gpetrium
Creating a bank account as a foreigner has become increasingly difficult since
a subsidiary of Danske [1], a prior Fortune Global 500, was caught in a major
money laundering case which has brought the scrutiny of EU and US regulators
into their banking sector.

For those interested in opening an e-business in Estonia, please be mindful
that due to the 'Tech Company' way in which the government looks to operate,
that there is an increasing rate of change in regulations which can impact
your business decisions, although major generic areas such as Corporate and
Personal tax rate has trended downwards (around 25% in 2004 and 20% now).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank#Danske_Bank_(Finla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank#Danske_Bank_\(Finland\))

------
ptrckekn
Choosing markets brings prosperity. Like the "German Miracle" after WW2 (not
the Marshall Plan), when you abandon bureaucratic regulations and allow the
market to take over, vast and quick advancement comes, and everyone does much
better. [https://fee.org/articles/how-estonia-yes-estonia-became-
one-...](https://fee.org/articles/how-estonia-yes-estonia-became-one-of-the-
wealthiest-countries-in-eastern-europe/)

------
aearm
Interesting! to see how to run money laundry like a tech company.
[https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/2019/10/17/a...](https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/2019/10/17/a-massive-money-laundering-scandal-stains-the-image-of-
nordic-banks)

------
sgt101
Let's hope that the model doesn't include a hostile takeover by a big
incumbent.

------
simonebrunozzi
My understanding is that Estonia's tech push has some "great PR" but very
little substance, and some of my friends' experiences, as well as some other
HN commenters on this thread, seem to agree.

------
theredbox
A lot is said about Estonia but Lithuania is better positioned and grows
faster than Estonia.

It's interesting but to me Estonia cant quite compete with its neighbors to
the point of becoming wealthier than they are now.

~~~
romanovcode
I think this competitevness is stupid and Baltic countries should stand
together because of so much history.

~~~
atlasunshrugged
I agree, mostly because I think it's just practical for small markets (like ~1
million person countries) to band together but I remember in Estonia everyone
always thought of themselves more as a Nordic country rather than a Baltic one

~~~
romanovcode
They have similar language to nordic ones, Yes. But the place itself feels and
looks totally as Baltic country and there is absolutly nothing wrong with it.
(I've been in all 3)

I think the reason is that Estonia and Latvia used to be same country -
Livonia but I might be wrong.

~~~
mbeex
> They have similar language to nordic ones, Yes.

No :)

Estonian an Livonian are Finno-Ugric. They have a relation to Finnish (but in
no way to Scandinavian languages) and Hungarian. This group ist vastly
different from any other language in Europe including the Slavic languages.
Moreover, Livonian is not to be considered as equivalent to Latvia - Latvian
being the official language there.

------
disordinary
I'd imagine in most developed countries you can do everything online. In New
Zealand over the last year I've renewed my passport, setup a company, renewed
my drivers license, re-registered my car, opened a business bank account,
renewed my mortgage, handled my taxes, etc. All online. The only thing that
you can do online in Estonia which I can't do here that I can think of is
vote.

Of course NZ is usually ranked as either 1 or 2 on the "ease of doing
business" rankings and has low levels of bureaucracy so that might not be
typical but I'm also a UK citizen and I renewed my passport from NZ online
with no fuss.

------
vincent-toups
So with the expectation that it will either succeed wildly and they'll sell it
to google or it will flame the fuck out and take years off of its employee's
lives?

------
meerita
I have some questions, if I want to make a free-speech protected project, is
Estonia a country that will protect my business over silly demands or anything
close like that?

~~~
Avamander
There aren't any hate speech laws, but inciting uprest, and libel are both
forbidden.

------
puranjay
Does anyone here any experience running an Estonian company from India? Any
links to good tax lawyers?

~~~
atlasunshrugged
Not directly but I would recommend checking out the e-Residency marketplace
where they have vetted service providers (1Office is good) and asking in the
E-Residents FB group

[https://e-resident.gov.ee/marketplace/service-
providers/](https://e-resident.gov.ee/marketplace/service-providers/)
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/eResidents/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/eResidents/)

------
xvilka
Hopefully, many countries will follow.

~~~
hanniabu
I doubt it...doing things the old fashion way by paper makes it too easy to
get away with things.

~~~
darkwater
But at the same time having everything digital gives much more control on
everyone to a State (if the laws permit it to do so... or maybe even if they
don't)

------
stebann
A country that relies on tech-company-style management. What can go wrong?

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dmode
It begs the question, which tech company ? - WeWork, Uber, Facebook ?

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kazinator
Skype came out of Estonia; Microsoft destroyed it. `nuff said there.

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DonnyV
Income inequality is very large there.
[https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-living-
conditio...](https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-living-conditions-
in-estonia/)

~~~
Barrin92
also, the per capita income is no higher than in Lithuania which one wouldn't
guess given the barrage of articles about Estonia's 'innovative' government.

Relatively sound advice is that whenever someone advertises to run the
government 'like a business', the outcome is going to be 90% disappointing and
hot air.

This is essentially just a huge PR campaign, the electronic voting is a
security disaster, and if you see a government official talk about putting
things 'on the blockchain' just run.

~~~
dullgiulio
The government has been running "on the blockchain" for a while, with projects
like the X-road, which are also used by other countries (the other two Balitc
countries and Finland).

It is a blockchain in the only way that makes sense: a cryptographically
secure ledger run by a central authority (government).

~~~
Barrin92
well, that's weird because according to the institute that runs the entire
thing ([https://www.niis.org/blog/2018/4/26/there-is-no-
blockchain-t...](https://www.niis.org/blog/2018/4/26/there-is-no-blockchain-
technology-in-the-x-road)), there is no blockchain technology involved, it
merely uses some hashes to link data together, as do plenty of age-old
protocols.

This is a good example of why these PR campaigns are silly.

------
known
Without Cashless it's not possible

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barce
This piece is shocking in that nobody was interviewed. Not one single source
anonymous nor named. This fails journalism 101 for me.

~~~
ivarv
The author is the president of the country! Who would you expect her to
interview?

~~~
barce
Ordinary citizens: Even in a US presidential state of the union, the
Presidents (Trump included) will quote ordinary citizens about how the country
is doing.

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alt_f4
does that mean every year they layoff 5% of their weakest citizens

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mtgx
Before people start praising Estonia for its e-voting system, which inevitably
happens on such stories, let me remind you that the system was indeed open to
compromise:

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-
how-e...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/estonias-id-card-scrisis-how-e-states-
poster-child-got-into-and-out-of-trouble/)

The timeline may also match the hack the GCHQ and NSA did against the Estonian
e-ID provider, Gemalto:

[https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-
heist/](https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/)

So remember that even with hardware tokens used in electronic voting, which
are supposed to be much more secure than using other forms of authentication,
you still run the risk of having the election compromised, especially since an
election is something important enough that more than one major country could
be interested in manipulating at any given time.

It's not like the "well, I'm nobody, so why would the NSA/other spy agency
target me?!" situation at all. We're talking about the decision of who gets to
run a whole country, and sophisticated adversaries will be very interested in
influencing that if it can serve their interests.

We know China hacks tons of countries, we know Russia has been meddling with
all sorts of elections lately, and we also know that for the past 70 years the
USA has interfered in about one election per year, on average. This is not
just theoretical stuff that would never happen. And I'm sure there are many
Middle-Eastern and other Asian countries interested in influencing their
rivals' elections, too.

[https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/americas-long-
histor...](https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/americas-long-history-of-
meddling-in-other-countries-elections)

~~~
rebane2001
Voting is flawed in general. It'd be way harder to attack Estonia's e-voting
system than those touch-screen voting machines in the US.

I have faith in the Estonian system once they make e-voting completely
transparent (which is something they're working on, but it's not there yet)

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fithisux
The title says nothing, we need KPIs, average life span, mortality rates,
unemployment rates, health indices, education indices, overall quality of life
indices. Fancy titles are meaningless.

~~~
iagovar
[https://tradingeconomics.com/estonia/indicators](https://tradingeconomics.com/estonia/indicators)

