My former business partner back in the Web 1.0 days (hey D) had remarkable experience in scaling large systems. Studied under ast. Rolled his own ETL language to power primary research for a Nobel-prize winning social scientist. Could sound like Werner Herzog on demand. He’s the kind of man anyone shuts up and listens to. While helping him clean up a failed $25mm Deloitte project circa 1996, we got drunk in a Manhattan bar. Sometime around martini #3 he said:

“The next 10 years of software will be very boring. The entire field of CS will be employed turning paper process into digital process, at great cost. Almost all of these projects will fail because Americans are admirably earnest but tragically over-confident. You underestimate paper.”

“Good money for us though. But have a hobby to occupy your mind or you will be miserable. Zum Wohl.”

And that’s how I ended up order an ill-considered 4th martini. He was correct, although the interregnum was perhaps 2-3 years shorter than he predicted. Or 15 years longer depending on how one judges these things.

No longer true:

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-test-digital-...

And it wasn't really true before either, most of the Ämter used the Demis system.

That's very well put. And likely where a lot of companies remained. It would be interesting to see how the pandemic affected those operations.