We have a lot of institutions that would make americans shiver in fright, but give us germans a nice warm feeling because we know that there's someone actually looking out for us.
We have a nationally recognized group for the protection of customers. We have a group for the protection of children from bad influences in media, like hate speech or glorification of violence. We have a government office for the protection of the unemployed, which makes it possible for them to continue living a dignified life and helps them reintegrate into the working community. We have strong laws protecting employees from capricious acts by employers. We have a state program to protect the elderly when they cannot work to support themselves anymore, by enabling them to live a dignified life. We have state health insurance and laws in place to ensure that a german citizen would have to actively break the law to not be protected by affordable health insurance. Just to name a few.
All of this protects every one of us and means that we're free to help and aid one another without having to worry about giving too much or empowering a potential adversary. It also increases everyone's quality of life; for example education is at a comparably high level for everyone, and we don't have cities who need to think hard about homeless, because we don't have epidemics of homeless.
We don't care about having giant IT companies which could buy small countries. We're glad to have everyone have a good chance at a decent life.