3 ms·

These are all nice features but not the reason why faxes are still so popular in Germany. Its because Germany is years (some say decades) behind on digitizing t

These are all nice features but not the reason why faxes are still so popular in Germany. Its because Germany is years (some say decades) behind on digitizing the country and they need those fax machines to get anything done at all...

fxtentacle 3y ago
I would agree with you if I knew a technology that solved the same pain points as fax. Email is not the solution because you need to drop large amounts of incoming emails just because of spam. That means you can never rely on an email with an important document arriving. Snail mail is ... well ... slow. But it does arrive reliably and it does offer honest delivery tracking. As the example use case, let's go with me asking a potential supplier if they can provide a specific component. Which technology would an ideally digitized country use?
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  Email? Or check the supplier catalogue online. Are you really sending a fax for that? Re : signatures. All my recent contracts have been sign with DocuSign. That’s fine
- benatkin 3y ago
  DocuSign and alternatives.
- krzyk 3y ago
  Well, any other country (except Japan) has found a way. I don't recall when I had seen a fax machine in real life, there was one in the office 10 years ago, but it was one machine for about 1 thousand people. Sample solution is a website on which you send "email" (not real one, but the side shows it as such) - this way you can communicate with goverment (local and country level) in Poland. I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them?
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    > I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them? Many (most?) private households don't have a fax machine. There are several ways of submitting your taxes (e.g. mailing them in), but there's also the Elster app which makes this process fully digital: https://www.elster.de/eportal/start https://www.elster.de/eportal/start Plus various (mostly paid) third-party tools. It's also worth noting that filling out a tax report is optional for most(?) people that aren't self-employed, because taxes are automatically deducted from your salary. You're advised to fill them out, though, as usually you can get some money back (e.g. by deducting money for your commute and other things).
  - noAnswer 3y ago
    > I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them? They use software (or websites) that utilizes a so called ERiC-API (Elster) (available since ~1999) to communicate with the tax office. Since 2005 companies must send their tax stuff digital.
suction 3y ago
[dead]

fxtentacle 3y ago

I would agree with you if I knew a technology that solved the same pain points as fax. Email is not the solution because you need to drop large amounts of incoming emails just because of spam. That means you can never rely on an email with an important document arriving. Snail mail is ... well ... slow. But it does arrive reliably and it does offer honest delivery tracking. As the example use case, let's go with me asking a potential supplier if they can provide a specific component. Which technology would an ideally digitized country use?

dopidopHN 3y ago
Email? Or check the supplier catalogue online. Are you really sending a fax for that? Re : signatures. All my recent contracts have been sign with DocuSign. That’s fine
benatkin 3y ago
DocuSign and alternatives.
krzyk 3y ago
Well, any other country (except Japan) has found a way. I don't recall when I had seen a fax machine in real life, there was one in the office 10 years ago, but it was one machine for about 1 thousand people. Sample solution is a website on which you send "email" (not real one, but the side shows it as such) - this way you can communicate with goverment (local and country level) in Poland. I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them?
- Tainnor 3y ago
  > I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them? Many (most?) private households don't have a fax machine. There are several ways of submitting your taxes (e.g. mailing them in), but there's also the Elster app which makes this process fully digital: https://www.elster.de/eportal/start https://www.elster.de/eportal/start Plus various (mostly paid) third-party tools. It's also worth noting that filling out a tax report is optional for most(?) people that aren't self-employed, because taxes are automatically deducted from your salary. You're advised to fill them out, though, as usually you can get some money back (e.g. by deducting money for your commute and other things).
- noAnswer 3y ago
  > I wonder, how do people in Germany do taxes? They fax them? They use software (or websites) that utilizes a so called ERiC-API (Elster) (available since ~1999) to communicate with the tax office. Since 2005 companies must send their tax stuff digital.

suction 3y ago

[dead]