Why is the visa process stuck in the “Catch me if you can” days?

Clearly you are not familiar with bureaucracies and how they grow. You do not need to file your taxes explicitly, or at any rate, rehash the information that's already known to the government, such as your taxes withheld and so on, every year. But if you do that, then a lot of people will lose their cushy government jobs, and vested interests, such as corporations and unions that feed at the government trough will end up on the losing side as well. That's why you end up doing these things repeatedly. Yes, there's software, but that is only an aid for the bureaucrats to do less actual work.

Politicians are of course complicit and key enablers of these schemes. They gain leverage when this type of pork is in their constituencies.

Foreigners don't vote, so there's little democratic incentive to treat them well. And if you need a visa, the country has already put you in the "undesirable" category (tourists from desirable nations can visit without visa).

Not an answer to your question and only tangentially related, but I've had a terrible time getting a U.S. immigration visa for my wife.

Around 2017/2018, the National Visa Center (NVC) took their "document review" process digital. Previously you would have to mail in all of your documents, wait 2-3 months for your documents to get to the front of the line, they would verify them, and then after they were verified would send the "okay" to the actual embassy in the country you are applying from (in our case Taiwan).

If you had an issue with one of the documents, you would repeat the process including the 2-3 month wait. This makes sense, since when receiving mail you'd have to actually "process" it first to see if it was for an existing application or not (instead of just putting it in a giant bin for "July 15th").

When they moved the process online, however, they kept the same queue process. You wait 2-3 months to get to the front of the line, and if there is an issue, you have to resubmit the document and wait 2-3 months for them to review it again.

It's fairly easy, however, in an online format to tell _who_ each document is for. What _should_ happen, is you are put in a queue and have to wait your turn to get to the front, and then they work on helping you get through. If you have an issue with a document, you resubmit and it's looked at next to get you "moved on through".

They also shut down the phone line that you can call to talk to an actual human being about what needs to be submitted. Instead, you can submit an email that has a wait time of 2 months to get your question answered.

Overall one of the most frustrating experiences of my life

The amount of visa fraud that exists is just mind blowing, and there are different flavors for every visa category that exists. The amount of staff assigned to process visa applications is small and have to make a decision which has weight on their home country. Outsourcing the process as much as possible allows fraud patterns to be caught more quickly and slowing the process reduces the incentives for bad actors to push their luck, esp if they don’t get to hold their passport during the process.

I say this as somebody that’s pro-immigration. The system sucks but it’s doing a service for the destination country and legit applicants.

If a country is going to just stamp “approved” on most people, they wouldn’t bother with having consular staff process applications, they’d offer visa on arrival or visa waivers.

I want to also add: why do we have to submit the same information (full name, passport number, expiration dates, travel history, etc.) each time we apply for a visa even if we are applying to the same country.

They aren't, you are just going through a "visa agency" which really is just paying someone to do the visa application process.

You can easily do this yourself, or go in person. The reason you pay select visa agencies is so they can expedite the process, or in certain cases expeditate through some sort of kickback or knowing someone within immigration. This can be as simple as a firm reserving all known slots for the future, to having an insider who can selectively pick your application, put you on the top and process you as needed.

If your visa firm doesn't have any "information" then you aren't paying the right firm and you are just wasting your money/time on a process you most likely can do yourself.

Not all visas require your passport, many countries will happily just take your biometric page and apply a sticker upon entry that is for long term stay/non tourism. There are also different organizations like schools/universities that will do this entire process for you as they act as your "visa firm."

It takes a long time because every country has inward demand, the immigration process is designed to be a bottleneck to slow down, verify and selectively give out visa to people who are deemed "worthy of it."

1. You are forgetting that countries have the right to refuse entry to anyone they don't seem fit. It does not matter if your time, money or other intangible or tangible item is at stake.

2. Many countries do have completely electronic processes, China's/PRC has an complete online procedure for a 10yr tourist visa. Taiwan has a complete online election for a 5 year gold card program that is workervisa/residency/permenant residency. Japan allows completely online transactions if you are sponsored by a university or job. Thailand has a complete online process for tourism and business via Thailand pass, Cambodia is purely electronic conducted over email.

There does not need to be a physical visa in your passport, Indonesia ITAS does not give you a unique visa or such, but the reason why you have a physical sticker instead of other paperwork is because it serves as your identity paperwork in that country, which you can use to get a tax number, open bank accounts and conduct business all in one.

You seem to have a general misunderstanding of how these visas and their processing works, and that's okay - it is a system that is paperwork based and is bureaucratic in nature, on purpose. That's what it is, and that's how it serves - to create an anchor in confirming your identity.

I would say your question could be restated as "why are government services bad". I think government services are bad because they are the ultimate monopoly. Their funding is guaranteed regardless of quality of service (it comes from the government), and their customer base and revenue is guaranteed regardless of quality of service (if you need a visa, you've gotta use them). So why should anyone make it better? Who benefits? Some people who are going to use it anyway even if it sucks.