IT in general is stuck in blind valley and doesn't make anything easier anymore with its aggressive outsourcing and profit extraction. The only systems which go quickly and efficiently are those against the interests of an average citizen - e.g. the covid certification apps determining and limiting basic citizen rights. Oftentimes I prefer to show up in person with ID and fetch a printout with confirmation, than to install their bloated sloppy apps tracking the shit out of me.
They often try to recreate the paper process with IT, instead of making a complete new setup.
Example:
Previously, you had to go to the City Hall or whatever in your pace of birth to get a birth certificate.
Now you can email them, pay, and they mail you the certificate via snail mail.
How it should be: Use an online token, log into your account, request a birth certificate and just print it. It should have a URL that can be used to verify that it is valid. This would be faster and the risk of forgery would be much lower. A seal - and Germans love seals, they wank of to seals - can be forged much easier.
> Previously, you had to go to the City Hall or whatever in your pace of birth to get a birth certificate.
> Now you can email them, pay, and they mail you the certificate via snail mail.
> How it should be: Use an online token, log into your account, request a birth certificate and just print it. It should have a URL that can be used to verify that it is valid. This would be faster and the risk of forgery would be much lower. A seal - and Germans love seals, they wank of to seals - can be forged much easier.
That's an unreasonably high (or weird) standard. What country has a process like that? Switzerland certainly doesn't.
Aggressive outsourcing is hilariously out of touch.
Western consultancies win contracts to build IT systems. The project is outsourced to India for low cost. Indian outsourcing team hires the cheapest talent possible. Cheap talent provides cheap quality. Website is bloated and slow. Some person on the internet uses these systems, hates it and develops a strong negative bias for all Indian (replace with any 3rd world country) talent.
On the other hand, Indian Govt hires the competent Indians at fair prices. (These aren't even our best or that well paid). It treats them with (moderate) respect and allows them to own their projects. Indian Govt. websites turn out to be seamless, performant and handle 10x the scale of western IT systems. This is a recent phenomenon, but India's digitization of railways, covid management, aadhar, social welfare and UPI has been best in class.
Reminds me of when westerners visit India, eat at the most suspicious looking street food place, and inevitably get sick. You never want your street food (programmers) to be cheaper than the bar set by local middle class (or their taxes). Yeah, outsourcing will save money. But, have some standards.
There is massive corruption and lobbying in the decision chain. I cannot imagine responding positive, without any incentive, to a proposal "Shall we outsource this stuff to Bengaluru?". Anyway this applies mostly to corporate EU, profit extraction in public sector in many EU countries means rather hiring local software house with local students on some non-permanent volatile contracts.
