so, basically, “paid”.

I would actually argue that this argument is more suited for Greece. I was born here and live here now, and the bueraucracy is absolutely horrendous. If you have money, however, you pay a lawyer and they do everything for you. And, at least on the islands, the police literally doesn’t work. I used to drive about 30 km daily… when I was 13. I saw a police car at least once a week (way too frequently for Greece), even drove by them, greeted them, never got caught.

Bonus points:

1. The GDPR, while far from perfect, still applies here;
2. many people live here that cannot, for the life of them, use computers. Digitalization is starting to emerge here and it’s still in it’s infancy, but even when they are done, you will still be able to do any government actions the “analog” way;
3. since this is Greece, where democracy emerged, people do their best to protect it (although lately this isn’t working out too well).

So US isn’t “free”, but “discounted” at best?