Which is why Germany has one of the best infrastructures, both physical and electronic, in the Western world?
If there is such a thing as a most right stereotype, it's how the Silicon Valley worshiping non-Americans on HN deny the successes and strengths of their own country.
Germany is a, if not the leading country in industrial standardization, and especially in the current climate most of the world will prefer to follow Germany's lead over the politically and ideologically compromised American industry.
The infrastructure is from another timeframe (pre-2000, often pre-1990) - like elsewhere. The roads, and telephone copper&fiber cables last a long time, with maintenance.
FWIW there is a prime time television show about unnecessary and failed public projects in Germany. Germany has worse Internet infrastructure than many, if not most, of its European neighbours. Merkel once famously said "Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland" (The internet is new ground for all of us) and finally outed the government as antiquated. The achievements Germany made in industralization are fading away. Even basic infrastructures like streets are steadily rotting which was definitely not the case 10-20 years ago.
To tangentially answer your question (with only little relation to the rest of the thread), we're getting old much the way Japan does, and we're doing very little to help it. The average German is 45, ageing to 50 in the next 15 years. This has direct consequences on the political discourse, choosing a status quo mentality over the innovative stance we used to have.
I didn't know there was ever a real thing named De-Mail. I named a fictional email-like service De-Mail, in my book The Dread Space Pirate Richard. it's closer to Reddit than email, however.
My take on De-Mail was that of a forum & messaging system where you can never be sure if anything you see or hear in it is true or honest or factual, in whole or in part, but at least it's entertaining or stimulating, and that's what mattered most! there's a major comedy piece written around it.