[aeyes]

1. Made in Germany for consumer products might be worth less today but the export of industrial supplies like machines, chemicals and materials are much more important to the economy as a whole. Outside of Germany it is still quite respected - to the point where foreign companies give themselves and their products German sounding names while slapping German flags on their boxes to sell more.

2. Why software Made in Germany doesn't work well has a number of reasons but I'd say that it is primarily because it is much harder to raise capital for things that only might work 1 out of 50 times. People who start businesses are much more risk-averse and most try to be profitable or self-financed from year 1. This makes them uncompetitive in innovative sectors.

[alephnerd]

1. You are correct that German industrial exports are highly respected. The issue is manufacturers in other countries (eg. Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Türkiye, China, Romania, Spain, Mexico) have caught up. And oftentimes those manufacturers are themselves German companies. This has in turn commodified a major portion of the German industrial base.

2. France has a similarly ossified financial culture, but has a much more robust tech industry compared to Germany (eg. Ubisoft, Datadog, Capgemeni, Dassault Systemes, Dataiku, Alcatel-Lucent, Thales, Orange, etc)

Germany has a strong base, but some reform is absolutely needed to upskill their economy.

[julienfr112]

Germany has SAP, ...

[alephnerd]

But that's just 1 champion (well, actually 2 because Siemens has a robust R&D presence) whereas there are multiple in France. In general, R&D in the software and electronics space seems stronger in France due to the robust MIC, Aviation, and Telco sector spending a lot of money on R&D

[FirmwareBurner]

I think he meant SAP but in a satirical way