[mtmail]

Last week searched for to get a refund for a travel ticket (German train company). Several online companies claim the process is complex and offer an express service, for a 30% cut. The refund process is actually pretty straight forward.

Same with a company that ranked high for "cancel $big_company subscription membership". You fill out a form, pay 10 Euro, and they will print a letter and mail it to $big_company on your behalf.

[nicbou]

You can make a lot of money digitalising German bureaucracy against its will. For a lot of people, mailing free form letters around is a pain in the ass. It doesn’t help that some of the forms are complex and the processes unpredictable. My readership (see profile) speaks English, so even writing the message is a hurdle.

I used to think that people are dumb for paying for things that I show them how to do for free, but my dad is a mechanic and still lets someone else change his oil. People are busy and don’t like logistic friction.

I’m joining that industry myself with a 15€ Wohnsitzabmeldung. It’s worth it just for getting your Abmeldebescheinigung by email. I’m thinking of charging a little above cost for a nice layer over post-as-a-service and fax-as-a-service too.

Only in Germany!

[solardev]

Whaaaaaaaaaaat.... the heck are Wohnsitzabmeldung and Abmeldebescheinigung? "De-registration"? Does that mean you have to go through some bureaucracy to move AWAY from somewhere (and then a separate thing to move TO somewhere, later, presumably...?)? That's kind of insane and also super interesting, lol.

I also love these German compound words that can turn entire English paragraphs into a single word. Do you have a word for when someone spends their entire life submitting to trivial government bureaucracies and then goes insane and breaks all the rules and rebels and moves into the woods and disappears from society forever without filing a single form?