this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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It's pretty much just that there are a lot of germans.
The population of germany is about 80 million.
All else being equal, there are 16 times more germans online than us finns, for example.
Next to the USs 300 million people, that's still one german about every 5 people. Add to that that germans are definitely online more than americans, and yeah...
A lot of germans.
Ok, but if you consider that there are 80M Germans, there are also 60M French (+African countries), and 50M Spanish (+ LatAm). That would make for a language ratio of ~1:1:1 considering Europe alone. This clearly doesn't seem to be the case, so I'm just curious what the reason behind the strong adoption in German speaking countries could be...
I'm probably quite biased being German myself, but I feel like that things like privacy and security tend to be more important to Germans than to other folks. And I don't speak just about the tech bubble, it shows everywhere.
To give a random example, when a license plate has been blurred in a photo posted anywhere, chances are high it's been posted by a German. Despite the fact that there is no license plate lookup (like carfax for US, finnik.nl for Netherlands, car.info for Sweden etc) so a license plate wouldn't even reveal anything to anyone, yet we treat it like a secret on instinct. If you ask such a German why he blurred it, he probably won't have a reasonable response, he just does it because he feels like it.
(Edit: Just look through the used cars here, most if not all will have their plates blurred if they have plates on them lol)
Getting back to topic, this might not be the only explanation, but I'm pretty sure it's a noticable factor why Germans are especially present on platforms like this, i.e. platforms that tend to respect the user's privacy more than the big tech corporations.
Hmm that's fascinating. I didn't realize you guys had such a strong cultural tendency towards privacy. Do you think there's a specific thing that caused it, or has it always been this way?
Hmm I don't know actually, but now I'm curious too. From quick search:
https://www.codastory.com/surveillance-and-control/coronavirus-germany-privacy/
Interesting, although seeing as being sensitive about privacy isn't as big in other post communist countries (at least not here in Czechia), I assume it must just be a generic cultural trait
Most of this privacy fetish is purely performative though. The Schufa is a dystopian data collector with information on every German and despite a token focus on data privacy politicians pass more and more surveillance laws like using Palantir for the police and crackdowns on free speech and protesting in general.
Half of Google streetview is blurred here
I think it took us 4 or 5 years of frog boiling until street view cars were allowed here (and only once google made it possible to have your home be censored)
then you would also have to include the Austrians and our Brothers in Cheese π
60 millions Italian also.
As a neighbour (and disliker) of that country I can't tell you how many German tourists I've seen immediately speaking germ and just assuming everyone needs to understand.
Probably why they are the only ones posting in their language here
Yeah, I haven't noticed an unusual amount. Lemmy is still mostly Americans, and then maybe Brits and Germans. Just anyone that can speak English and has had broadband long enough to acclimatise to nerd culture, basically.
How can we even like know that?
The amount of American politics and culture on here for a start
To be fair the amount of absolute insanity coming out of the US is what's driving it. Luckily the UK has been fairly stable recently.
They'll tell you before you can ask
Yeah, occasionally. Honestly that's fine, the annoying thing is when they assume everyone else is too.
I don't have hard data, but it seems self-evident just from my personal experience. And going back to the original point, it's a nation of 400 million.