interesting

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.

In comparison to which other countries?

Why?

Large infrastructure projects in Germany usually fail, projects involving the internet or technology especially so.

If there is such a thing as a most wrong stereotype, german efficiency is it.

Recent infamous examples:

* Berlin Brandenburg Airport, originally planned to open in 2010, estimates suggest that the airport will open in 2018 or 2019: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

* De-Mail (competitor to email): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Mail

* E-Postbrief (competitor to email and De-Mail): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Postbrief

* SAP Web Dynpro (Java, only ABAP now): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Dynpro

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.

Large public works projects are a problem in Germany.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/disastrous-publ...

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.

The reason for his strong bias is that no news show in their right mind will tell you:

"Here's a list of stuff that is working perfectly fine..."

News are cherry-picking the few examples that DON'T work.

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.