Having lived here for 1.5 years, I can say that beraucracy in germany basically works in the sense of how bureaucracy in other lesser third world countries work.
Basically, the system works in general for the average population but is broken such that it affects most those at the margins (for example, the rich, the poor, those entrepreneurial, etc).
In other countries, when this happens, you see the rich paying their way to access while the poor generally suffer until some populist movement comes and promises to save them.
It's thus really not that surprising, I just had yo change my view on where I placed each country in this developed/developing country mental model
In third world countries, if you're wealthy (by local standards), you can grease the wheels with bribes, or better yet, cheaply outsource tasks to "consultants" who know exactly how to navigate the system and pay the bribes on your behalf, giving you plausible denialability. Need an Indonesian multi-year business visa? $200 to the right "visa consultant" and it's yours in days.
As far as I can tell, this is not an option in Germany, certainly not cheaply. Healy, one of the global companies that does this kind of thing, wants €14000 to create a GmBH for you, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't speed up things, it just makes it somebody else's headache.
brilliant comment! also, the average population doesnt know better, as they dont have a reason/possibility to compare, so they think THIS is the best possible solution.
> so they think THIS is the best possible solution.
Nobody thinks that. Everybody knows how much bureaucracy sucks, and everyone regularly rages about the insanity and traps. There are whole TV-Shows about the bullshit done there. But people can't change it, so they just accept it, and know it could be worse.
Basically, the system works in general for the average population but is broken such that it affects most those at the margins (for example, the rich, the poor, those entrepreneurial, etc).
In other countries, when this happens, you see the rich paying their way to access while the poor generally suffer until some populist movement comes and promises to save them.
It's thus really not that surprising, I just had yo change my view on where I placed each country in this developed/developing country mental model