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Comment by amonavis | Hacker News Reader

To me this is a weird view of government services. I'm paying taxes to have a system serve me, and to have processes support my life not the other way around. Leaving all emotions out of the equation, the job of the jurisdiction under which I fall is so facilitate my legality so I can pursue a productive and enjoyable life. If I'm paying taxes and I'm expected to pitch in the governmental effort, then that's not where I want to be.

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You can deal with the world either how you wish it were, or how it is.

The reality is that bureaucracies are full of humans – and we all know how humans are.

Everything is full of humans, but private companies with terrible processes workers would usually have consequences that demand some change. Government services have no competition sos they are exempt from consequences if they're terrible.

ah - i see you've never dealt with vodafone germany customer support then

Can you read my previous point? Vodafone Germany has competition, I'm not forced to be their customer if I don't want to, but I can take my money elsewhere.

Meanwhile I can't choose between other government services while in Germany but those terrible forced upon me by the state.

Before the war when I studied Russian, I had the unpleasant experience of having to get a Russian visa, which is usually subcontracted to "VFS Global", a private company. Didn't do anything to improve the experience at all.

Private means nothing if it's just another monopoly without any competition.

Plenty of exceptions to that – broadly speaking, oligopolies, but generally anywhere with low competition like the only convenience store in a locality, rural broadband, etc.

There is no perfect competition, supply doesn't perfectly meet demand, and incentives aren't always perfectly aligned ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case, government services change through policy and, thus, indirectly, through the electorate. But a) it lags, b) is not the only issue the electorate care about, c) the supply of money is not infinite, d) the supply of labour is not fungible and e) in this specific case, policy on immigration is generally driven by people not immigrating, so the incentives are not aligned.

When you pay for a service, public or private, you are still dealing with humans that are not your slaves.So be kind and you'll get a better time or be entitled and you'll go to the bottom of the pile.

You can either try to make that ideal work, or accept reality.

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