Yes and no. The point of a government bureaucracy is to eliminate arbitrary decision making from the people in the field to the extent possible. Taken to the e

Yes and no. The point of a government bureaucracy is to eliminate arbitrary decision making from the people in the field to the extent possible. Taken to the extreme, you have the social security administration, which has a manual which essentially prescribes a procedure for any of thousands of scenarios. Zoning or code compliance requires some level of professional judgement, but the standards and procedures are driven by legislation or policy. Pushing that stuff to the end user just pushes the complexity of the business rules to the end user. Because there’s usually multiple political parties or interests and a level of public accountability, governments are good & efficient at delivering what they are mandated to deliver. (What they are asked to deliver is usually the “problem”.) When was the last time that benefits checks weren’t issued? Commercial entities with similar qualities are also very bureaucratic (ie banks, airlines). Tech companies tend to be pretty bad at internal controls, and engage in a lot of hold my beer.