I blame the early influx from members of various other parties (though mostly Greens and the left-wing party "Die Linke"). I don't necessarily disagree with th

I blame the early influx from members of various other parties (though mostly Greens and the left-wing party "Die Linke"). I don't necessarily disagree with their views, but it helped water the identity of the party down to a level that made it indistinguishable from other liberal groups. Initially the PP also saw some influx from more conservative parties, which created an unstable equilibrium. Now it's just participating around in the usual left-wing infighting (vegans vs vegetarians, feminists vs egalitarians, and so on). I think part of the reason is that Germans expect parties to cover more than "one issue" (even if that issue is as broad as the entire concept of "an open information infrastructure with a transparent government and strong personal privacy"), so there was an early effort to create a "full programme" covering virtually anything. We'd probably be better off if we had specialised interest groups instead of shrinkwrapped parties. But good luck making democracy more direct and modular when there is a centuries old legacy that portrays anything other than the existing faction-based system as unconstitutional and therefore evil.