[majewsky]

Speaking as a German, a big part of why this decentralization isn't happening is that Germany's internet infrastructure is a fucking joke. I'm sometimes even having trouble with getting consistent 3G coverage in large city centers. When driving around the countryside, it's frequently 2G or no service at all. And it's looking similarly bad for broadband internet access in homes. My parents don't have any broadband service whatsoever. They use a 4G hotspot to go online, and get an average connection speed of 170 KB/s. This is par for the course in rural Germany.

[thirdsun]

As a fellow german, I'm aware. In fact I'm living in a quiet, rural place about 45 minutes from a very large city. My only broadband option is LTE, which thankfully has very good coverage here (steady 50 Mbit) and features an unlimited plan (Telekom Magenta Hybrid), but up until a few years ago everyone around here was limited to 1 Mbit DSL.

Of course the problem goes deeper than raw infrastructure - the mindset for a digital life isn't there yet. This appleis to businesses and particularly to official government bodies. Think about your interactions with the government, simple errands like renewing your ID or registering your car - there are awfully complicated and outdated processes everywhere. I've said it before but I look with envy to competent, easy to navigate portals like https://www.gov.uk/.