[mk89]

I agree on further digitalization of public services and stuff - come on, ... here in Germany you must store every kind of receipt for tax declaration (I don't know how this works in other countries, I just find it ridiculous nowadays). However, what the president of Estonia is talking about is basically not applicable to most of the current European countries, where people/countries raise walls, other countries threaten to leave, or where national interests are way higher than European ones.

In addition, I would also like to say that it's important to keep in mind that Estonia is a smaller country compared to others in Europe (it has ~ 1.5 million people, more or less the amount of people living/working in Cologne/Amsterdam/Milan). This means that they can be more focused and can invest more selectively. If you want to digitalize a country like Germany you need to change how many cities and towns? And ... how many laws that require still "paper" proof? It's not impossible, it just takes more time. That's it.

I hope that the president will be able to convince European countries to improve their IT infrastructure. That's cool. However, bigger countries won't see that coming in the next 5-10 years at least.

[jamesblonde]

Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. Here in Sweden, everything is digitalized and it makes life easy. I think of this externality of managing your taxes and stuff like that as "societal tax". Time is money, and countries like Germany and the US have ridiculously high levels of "societal tax" - you have to think so much to make simple decisions. Can i fix this problem with the govt in an afternoon, should I save this receipt for my tax declaration, to things like do I trust the taxi will turn up on time, will the train arrive on time?

[mk89]

I also want more digitalization, BUT. If this has to cost my own privacy then I would like to have the time to think about it. I would not like to see my personal/financial data online because a hacker found a hole in the system, or something like that.

Ah, and by the way, what people don't seem to understand is that it's also thanks to laws about privacy that Germany (and Europe in General) is funding more and more companies. People don't use Google Analytics due to that most of the time. Microsoft had to open a data center in Frankfurt, and so on, and so on. All this has diverse implications: hiring a company that keeps data in Germany. Who does it? German companies (or European companies). And money flows as it should. The country grows, people learn software, new jobs are created, and so on.

I would be not so hasty about changing privacy laws - they are there for a (good) reason (actually, more than one). Maybe in the next 10-15 years, when European (and German) software companies are more stable, then yes why not? But now, I am not so sure about it.

[gurkendoktor]

> Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy.

I think you are missing the elephant in the room: our (German) complete and utter incompetence when it comes to software development.

Declaring taxes for my business still involves mailing many dead trees around the country, and I hate it. But what's the alternative, sinking billions of euros into a public software project that might be as crappy as Toll Collect?

[mk89]

I agree with you, and the only way to improve that is to invest more in "software" (in general), although things are moving slowly, yet they move.