Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by TulliusCicero 2432 days ago
Same thing in Germany, I've been surprised at how much reluctance there is to use email or websites for things, instead relying on physical mail or phone calls.

Elementary school wants to communicate about some appointment? Do they use the email from us they already have? Haha no, of course they send a letter (that arrives the day of the appointment, natch), and then later call us to complain that we didn't show. And their website looks like it was designed by an intern in 2006, and is virtually never used to communicate useful information throughout the year.

The current elementary school we have does use email...but much of the content they send actually comes in a PDF instead of the email itself, and not the type of with actual text, it's just a bitmap, so to translate we type shit in manually into Deepl (or use OCR for the longer things).

Want to re-up your alditalk account without going to the store? Want to use a credit card, or even Germany-specific debit card? Nope, you tell us your address and we'll send you a letter, which you can then use to authenticate your bank account for transfers. I guess they're worried about...people paying for my phone service on my behalf?