As a German I'd say it's especially larger enterprise companies that are averse to change. For example having worked for clients in the medical sector in the pa

As a German I'd say it's especially larger enterprise companies that are averse to change. For example having worked for clients in the medical sector in the past it was widely held wisdom that if you were observing a new trend in technology it'd take at least five to ten years before you could even think about convincing those companies to adopt them. They were the ultimate late adopters. Smaller companies experiment more, but investors are equally risk-averse so they tend to prefer startups that are cashflow positive (as opposed to Silicon Valley's growth mindset) or that follow tried and true business models. So a lot of innovation has to be bootstrapped or rides on the back of existing companies -- the product company spun out of an agency seems to be a fairly common. But all in all I'd say if something is holding German companies back from innovating it's the risk aversion, not the privacy laws. The strict privacy laws actually creates a market for domestic solutions to problems solved by US companies with no regard for privacy (i.e. nearly all of them). Sure, it makes certain business models impossible but many would say that's for the better -- many problems actually end up not being impossible but simply requiring less obvious solutions than blatantly violating your customers' rights. And looking at the German economy, especially in contrast to other European countries, I'd say calling it a failure is incredibly dishonest. Risk aversion may limit innovation but it also creates a strong healthy economy that is incredibly stable because it rests on a large number of medium sized companies rather than a small number of unicorns and a constant Cambrian explosion and mass extinction.