I have a nephew who has lived in Germany since he was 7 years old, he’s now 50. He is married to a German lady and they own a restaurant and hotel, which she inherited from her grandfather.
Sure things are “free” but taxes run about 70%. Bureaucratic oversight is insane (paperwork and reports for their business). The mindset of the average German is quite liberal and the older Germans still suffer from “German guilt” which basically paralyzes their thinking process, IMO.
It used to be (I assume it is still the same) the government (i.e. taxpayers) would pay for your college but they decided if you qualified. No yardsales/flea markets on Sundays, well, just because they say so. When there are rules that make no sense the average German just says “that is the rule, we don’t question it”.
Then there is the crime from the immigrants (good website, updated daily, if you want to stay up with crime in EU:
https://medforth.blog/
We have a niece and her husband who are involved with on-line digital music production who were almost convinced they wanted to move to Germany. They had spent a year there in the past when they were just out of college, and figured you could live anywhere and do the on-line music biz thing. They remembered Berlin as paradise. So about 2 years ago they go back for a visit to check out the possibility of changing residence. Well, they discovered Germany is no longer the low cost, trouble free paradise they remember. They found today’s Germany very pricy and problematic in terms of predictability when it comes to housing and living expenses. They now prefer to stay in California and own a house in the canyons outside LA.