Exactly! That's what I do in the Netherlands. It's also common to cover this contractually too - you can negotiate where liability falls for many cases.
Getting a limited liability company for a one-person operation is just overkill.
There are two reasons not to go this way in NL, 1. There are tax discounts for small businesses that only apply to a sole proprietorship kind of structure and 2. Administrative costs for a BV are slightly higher because the legal entity itself needs to file taxes, instead of only the owners having to do so.
But the difference is now very small, #1 has been reduced the past few years and #2 is quite simple. It's an online portal to submit the numbers, if you know what you're doing you don't need an accountant.
And I think this is the key criticism for the German system. They don't seem to have a simple online portal for this and they still require 25k starting capital. That makes it harder for a small business to get started.
My wife works for a notary and most of the time people are really pushing to get an appointment but then fail to register a bank account on time so they have to wait a couple of weeks anyway without anybodies fault but their own.
Also this is not some secret knowledge. Like, these are not some tricks you learn over time this is something you could technically just ask a tax consultant or a notary. In fact the notary even likes it if you do that because if you try to be clever on your own you are most likely going to cause them more work. Like, you can literally go to a notary and say "this is my business. What should I do?" and they are either going to just do an UG with you or sent you to a tax consultant just to be sure.
Like, we have notaries because and they are as expensive as they are because they are supposed to consult you in legal matters and they are required for so many things so that you don't accidentally mess something up that is complicated.
Going to a notary really makes this so easy. You just sit there, dude's gonna read his legalese text and then sums it up in 2 sentences for you. Didn't get something? Ask questions. That's why you are there. That's their job.
It's really only difficult if you need a lil something for the AppStore for a side hustle and then try to get a GmbH straight away without ever consulting anybody that is literally only there to consult you and make it easier for you.
A sane country would handle this with a handful standardized forms of incorporation with clear rules, so that the majority of use cases that a normie might need is covered. All of this should be a few clicks on a gov webpage at most. Maybe some fee/deposit/whatever.
Lawyers and notaries should only start showing up when people want complicated setups.
(Yes I'm bitter with German notaries because so far they only took my money for some very mid service and couldn't even take two seconds of their time to answer an email with normal German words or clear instructions.)
Which you can do online in 20 minutes in more progressive countries.
The problems the post describes are not that. They are barriers that the author created himself by selecting a complex corporate setup.