[codethief]

Having gone through the process of incorporation myself, I agree with everything you said: Yes, there is some paperwork you'll have to take care of and a bit of a learning curve to everything but not outrageously so. It can all be done within ~2 weeks (including roundtrip times for mail). Yes, that's still a lot more than it'll take you in e.g. Estonia (where you can do everything online in a few minutes from what I've been told) but it really would be the least of my worries, compared to actually running the company.

That being said, I do think the process could be simplified drastically. Not necessarily by getting rid of the notary requirement but 1) through digitalization and 2) by streamlining (possibly centralizing) the whole back and forth between notary (official incorporation & signing of articles of incorporation), bank (getting a business account + obtaining proof you actually put the money in that account that you're claiming to have during incorporation), local court (registering the company, including articles of incorporation), tax authorities (getting a tax ID and sales tax ID), local authorities (getting a business permit), local chamber of commerce (paying dues for mandatory membership), Federal Gazette / federal company register (submitting your initial balance sheet).

[notanormalnerd]

This is my general opinion with regards to bureaucracy in Germany. All the data is most likely already there and all the technical challenges have been solved in the meantime. Why do I have to do the runaround from office to office, when they are physically connected by a piece if wire (aka the internet).

There is a reason why we have so much bureaucracy in Germany (1. because we like it) and second because it is supposed to provide trust, trust that every company I deal with is legit, trust that the system knows who is participating. Without trust nobody would make business or business would be very hard, because you would have to price in the risk of not having trust.

[cseleborg]

There is something to be said for trust here. I like that I can go straight to the imprint ("Impressum") to know with whom I'm dealing with online, where the company is located and who the CEO is. This is not always easy to decipher from the "Terms" pages companies in the US and elsewhere provide.

The downside for founders is that you have to divulge your address, unless you take additional steps to give yourself a mailbox address, but this can also be illegal if you're not careful. You can also rent an office of course, but for indie devs and freelancers, this is usually not financially viable.