Let me offer a counter-perspective, because this triggered me (sorry for the wall of text):

* Last year, my net salary went down even though my gross salary remained the same. The same is about to happen again: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article69483c23f6fc5...

* The author fortunately ended up in Hamburg, but in Munich, many people end up stuck with Fiktionsbescheinigungen and expired visas, unable to travel because the waiting time at the KVR is too long.

* Friends of mine have been waiting a year and eight months for permanent residence.

* If you apply for citizenship, they officially tell you not to even bother inquiring before a year and a half. Many have waited two years for it.

* To get a driver's license Neuantrag (which is just permission to start taking classes), it officially takes 3 months, but can take even longer. It's also expensive (around €3k), and changing driving schools is difficult.

* Hard to make friends: just look at r/germany. Everyone does activities together and then says goodbye. "Join a Verein" or "Learn the language" don't work as advertised.

* Annoying and obscene amount of paperwork and bureaucracy: Your tax office doesn't know about your health or pension insurance contributions even though they are state-managed, so you have to upload these documents or click buttons in ELSTER to retrieve them.(still better than a few years ago)

* Many shops close at 7 or 8 PM on weekdays, and supermarkets are closed on Sundays. You always have to rush if you have a long commute. Even grocery delivery services like Flink are constrained by this. Some shops even take a lunch break at 1:30 PM on top of that (idk if this is asking too much).

* DHL is so dysfunctional. They sometimes don't even ring when you're home, drop the package at the nearest pickup point, and leave a receipt in your mailbox. But if you go to the address on the receipt, you'll be disappointed because there's fine print stating it's only available for pickup starting from a future date. So you end up making multiple trips, guessing their opening hours (which don't match Google or the sign on the door), and waiting in line. Keep in mind "DHL Packstations" exist 24/7, yet they fail to sometimes reroute packages to them even if configured to do so.

* Those insurance portals where everyone reimplements email because "email is insecure, hurr durr": they send you an email with a login link -> an SMS OTP -> a cookie banner -> navigate a badly designed portal to find the latest message -> open the message only to find a PDF attachment. Why a PDF instead of writing the message directly on the portal? Because web text can be changed, whereas a PDF supposedly cannot (lol).

* A bakery closes at 19:00. We enter at 18:58, and the worker refuses to serve us - I thought you were supposed to serve customers who enter before closing time.

* If you miss an appointment at a branded repair store, they turn you away with zero flexibility or customer friendliness. You have to go back to their website, book another appointment, and travel all the way back later.

* Enormous wait times for doctors under public insurance. They aren't proactive, so you have to push for treatment and do your own research just to get a prescription.

* Forget about therapists, too. There's a 6+ month waiting list for every therapist on Doctolib - and with recent reforms, getting it reimbursed by public insurance is getting nearly impossible.

* They like laws - but a little too much, sometimes inventing their own rules to win arguments. I've seen this on streets where people just argue.

* Deutsche Bahn - no need to explain.

* Training and qualifications: It takes minimum 10 years to be a therapist, min. 8 years - tax advisor , minimum 8 years to become a lawyer . These are skilled jobs, but come on, all these are 1-3 years more than other countries. Not to mention it's some are gated so that it's tough to graduate.

* Also high rent ofc

Probably due to this, more citizens leave the country than arrive, and around 50-60% of immigrants end up leaving within a decade too. Overall, the country is a big step up from many other countries, including where I come from - India.