Wait, the Germans, of all people, don’t have a standard government design system? Next you’re going to say the Swiss also don’t have one, and I’ll have to throw out my entire set of national stereotypes!
1. Our population is quite old thus many people in key positions are quite old and missed the transition to the digital world.
2. So. Much. Bureaucracy.
3. Another factor that doesnt help is that the government pays quite poorly compared to the private companies. Any semi talented dev will find a better position than working for the government
The bureaucracy can be a good thing, because it also makes it harder for the government to get information on its citizens, and I think this is deliberate after WW2. Making it hard to exchange information is annoying (I've heard fax machines were still in use during the corona pandemic) but serves as an additional layer of protection from hostile governments. Time will tell if digitizing everything in for instance Denmark (my country) was a good idea.
Number 3 is the same in Denmark. You can almost double your salary if you work for the private sector.
Public sector and the old people are not good at modern solutions, but German officials and companies in general are still very driven in organizing and standardizing the soul out of everything.
> Next you’re going to say the Swiss also don’t have one
Well... at a federal level there is, but it's a confederacy so most of the time you're interacting with a local canton which has it's own set of systems.
It's not entirely surprising. Germany is a federal republic, somewhat similar to the US, with some degree of autonomy for its member states. Switzerland is a confederacy.
This needs correcting. Germany and Switzerland are both federal states, they occupy the same spot on the notional spectrum. <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/The_path...> The comment would have a point if either state was unitary, but this is not the case.
Switzerland was a confederation prior to 1848, the now inaccurate name stuck for I assume sentimental reasons. The issue of republics is orthogonal to the topic under discussion.
My point is that they're both not the most centralised form of government. Even if Switzerland is officially a federation instead of the confederacy its name suggests, the point still stands.
It exists but I think it's undeniable that Germany is behind in many digital aspects, even in advertising. I think part of that is cultural (credit card acceptance and advertising being good examples) and another part existing bureaucracy.
