Page "German orthography reform of 1996" Paragraph 54

The above analysis, however, ignores the fact that the decision of the Ministers of Culture can ultimately affect only schools and public documents, since everyone else can simply write the way that they prefer.

Thus, it is impossible to introduce a spelling reform " overnight ".

Even if the spelling of private individuals could be legislated, there are still billions of books and archived magazines in libraries using the older spellings.

Comparison with currency change or driving on one side of the road or the other is invalid anyway: in those cases the old behavior completely disappears after the change ( the old money is either valueless or must be traded in soon, and it would be highly dangerous to continue driving on the " wrong " side of the road ).