Comment by gizmo
1 year ago
> However, if you’ve ever used a product marked “Made in Germany,” you’ll understand what German culture truly values: mastery of a craft and uncompromising quality. You won’t find many Germans willing to sacrifice their health or personal milestones—like the birth of a child—for work, or to forgo their well-earned vacation in Mallorca. They’re not the kind to release half-baked products and patch issues later, nor are they likely to push for higher prices just to fatten shareholders’ returns.
Self-serving prattle if you ask me.
German cars have notoriously bad and buggy infotainment centers. Germans do of course release half-baked products (like literally every other country). German cars don't even get patched. The built-in navigation system is useless and broken the day you buy your shiny new BMW and it will still be broken and useless by the time car goes to the scrap heap a decade or two later.
When BMW decides to a subscription model for heated seats is that not shameless profit seeking? Or is BMW somehow not German?
> Basic Law of Germany begins with “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” The entire culture fundamentally opposes many hallmarks of the typical startup ethos.
Germany is unable to build first rate tech businesses because -- wait for it -- Germany has superior culture. Give me a break.
> If you’ve ever worked with Mittelstand companies, you’ll know that many have a long queue of customers waiting for their products. It’s not uncommon to wait months—or even years—for an order.
This attitude is why the German economy has been shrinking for two years straight. Chinese businesses also do high precision machining and they do not make their customers wait for years. The belief that you can coast because competitors will never catch up is pure German arrogance.
The reality is Germany will loose badly if attitudes don't change.
The attitude isn’t changing, I can assure you. Few people see what’s happening for real in the country. The other ones are living in the delusional small nice Germany preparing for 1972 Olympics. If you ask about limiting uncontrolled immigration you’re already Hitler’s son. If you ask about basic product improvement, that makes production cheaper you shouldn’t rock the boat, because it was always done that way. Example from last week: we have here a trainee in the field of electronics. Electrical check of the office equipment is due for many years. My proposition: buy the trainee a device, that does these tests automatically, send the trainee through the office to conduct tests and save 15000€ not hiring external company with the same 1500€ tester. No, can’t be done. The trainee is bored to death toying with some cables and circuit breakers. The lack of flexibility will kill the country.
The thing is that now many countries can process metal precise enough to satisfy customers. Maybe it’s only 75% of German quality, but at 40% of the price it’s unbeatable. Looks like, that German companies are sabotaging themselves. Volkswagen and defeat device. Bayer and Monsanto acquisitions. I have no explanation for this. Maybe as you say German arrogance.
Bizarre how you shoehorned a complaint about immigration into this. How are migrants responsible for choices made by blinkered and conservative Mittelstand owners?
It's easy to blame outsiders -- migrants, Chinese, Americans, Russians -- for problems that Germans brought onto themselves. It's exactly this belief in German cultural supremacy that makes serious introspection impossible.
Sounds like an insurance driven decision.
Not really. It’s complicated in Germany. But normally a company has somebody named official electrician. It can be outsourced. And this electrician has a right to delegate some tasks to somebody else. So in this case trainee gets the right to do these automated tests this time or all the time in this location. I know this, because I am hardware developer in my day job and self employed electrician at night.