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Comment by chvid | Hacker News Reader

The problem is the lack of centralization - there should obviously only be one issuer of this ticket and thus just only one website / app to keep bug free.

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Lack of centralization is one part of it (see also: communal digital services), yes, but the complete lack of standards and guidelines is also a massive issue. I tried buying a Deutschlandticket from the DB Navigator app a while back, and immediately ran into some issues:

- they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen

- they require id verification with a third party(!), which then only supports the e-perso(!!) or video ident(!!!), which they could've just used the actual PostIdent service for, which would've provided an alternative for non-smartphone-havers / people who'd rather not have their ID and face recorded by some Eastern European company until the end of time

- their entire authentication system was down when it came to actually purchasing

buying from my local Verkehrsverbund was a single tap in their app instead, with no id verification whatsoever. If DB's offering were the only option it would be an absolute travesty.

Hetzner does this invasive ID flow for credit cards now. Fortunately they don't bother with PayPal.

Airbnb wanted access to my bank account transaction details (via Plaid) a while ago, "to verify my credit card". Hotels have never looked so appealing.

At some point booking.com decided it doesn't want to accept my money because I'm a fraud, apparently, so I use it to search and then book directly at the hotel, and booking.com doesn't get their commission.

Isn’t that one of the problems mentioned in the video? Being able to buy and get the ticket before the payment is fully validated?

(Or did your local Verkehrsverbund require you to use another payment for the initial purchase other than bank transfer?)

If purchasing via SEPA there's a wait period until the payment has cleared, if payment is done via credit card/[Apple|Google] Pay/PayPal fulfillment is instant.

Or foreigners that don't have German e-persos, because 99% of the time we don't need them.

If you've come to Germany as a foreigner recently you might have it automatically, newer ID cards have it activated

I lived here half on my life, and even though Portuguese ID cards are also electronic, they aren't accepted in such workflows.

I would need to pay 70 euros for one at a Burgerbûro just for that purpose.

> they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen

Does Germany not have a free state-run e-payment system such as Austria's EPS? If not, it wouldn't be too hard to implement if there is political will to stop this fraud.

The country that lived through pervasive mass state surveillance by secret police for 40 years is unsurprisingly quite cagey about digital centralization of records, even so many years later

Germany has a tendency to wish something into existence with a law, and stop there. No guidelines, no tools, no enforcement. Often not a thought about feasibility. Nothing past the press release.

Sometimes a law will be in effect for two or three years and virtually no one will even know about it. Recycling electronics in supermarkets? Nope. E-Rechnung mandated for all B2B invoices? In your dreams.

I work at the other end of the spectrum, reducing friction for new immigrants to Germany. I find it especially frustrating. I could explain how things should be, but it would be pointless when reality is far more disappointing.

> Germany has a tendency to wish something into existence with a law

After living here five years I've finally realized the same thing - Germany is the country of Rules, often well-intentioned, but no one actually follows them. It's especially damning when those rules actually are important and would protect regular people esp. around labor and housing, but oops zero meaningful enforcement. Wish we'd have 1/10th the rules but people had to actually follow them

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