[athenot]

> I am so confused if by merely giving someone a cheque they are able to “pull” money from just two numbers, and can do it for any amount & any number of times.

That is exactly how checks work. It's optimized for happy-path, with a big mess of a process to handle fraud. The cash equivalent would be to carry a bucket with all your money and when you pay, you present your bucket so that the shop can pull out the amount you and them agreed on.

[rlucas]

"Optimized for happy-path" is true, but it also reveals something pretty neat about the American financial / business climate.

"Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

Default trust / happy-path optimization in turn works because of the backstop of a strong legal system, fairly clear precedent, and reasonably well defined property rights. Think: UCC across states; standardized Delaware Chancery precedent; etc.

One reason I'm not a cryptocurrency or smart contracts believer is that the robust exception-handling backstop we have in the US is a mostly-invisible but super-valuable resource.

[spookthesunset]

You can expand that to other systems. For example you can walk onto a city bus in many cities without proof of payment. It is assumed the vast majority of people will have paid by tapping their transit card somewhere, or purchasing and activating some mobile-based e-ticket. Same with many commuter trains. The result is faster more streamlined service for everybody.

I find the cryptocurrency "space" fascinating for reasons like this. Because cryptocurrency gets rid of so many of societies long-evolved backstops, it is a perfect demonstration of why our society is structured the way it is and shows exactly what happens when we remove many of its features (eg: removing "trust" is very expensive).

[athenot]

I was initially taken aback by Moscow's gates for the subway but in restrospect they make sense and fit that model. They are (were?) gates that default to open, and stay open if you insert the token/pass. Otherwise they slam shut right in front of you. During rush hour, it's brilliantly simple as the gates just stay open as people pass through. (As a tourist, it was more "interesting" to get the occasional misfire and have it slam right in front of my legs, but that's a different story.)

[SketchySeaBeast]

> "Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

Does it though? I think there's a reason we've stopped accepting cheques - cheques were the best "easy" way to transfer relatively large sums of money at once, now that we're past that and have more secure credit and debit cards cheques are becoming banned. I don't think it was optimized for "happy path" per say, but just for convenience and was the only technology we could manage at the time.

[mehrdadn]

>> "Default trust" actually works in our economy. And because of that, friction can be low and things Just Work.

> Does it though? I think there's a reason we've stopped accepting cheques

That's a very specific issue but this is a pretty general fact. With respect to checks, people still write and accept checks, we just have more convenient payment methods. Also checks are still the easy way to transfer large sums of money at many banks. More generally though, just look at how much can be done with a signature under penalty of perjury, and how relatively rarely these are forged. The trust-based system really works decently well in the US.

[arcticbull]

I just realized something -- the cryptocurrency-maximalist and antivaxx movement are born of a similar phenomenon.

Humans are great at rallying and pushing and making change when they see identify something as wrong in their direct lives. We work as hard as possible, and develop solutions (vaccines, a strong legal backstop). Then, all is well, and the problems we solved are no longer part of our lives because the system works.

Years later a vocal minority becomes very suspicious (they're inflating away my wealth!, autism!) and tries to overhaul the system. Then they learn why we do things the way we do (scams/manipulation/etc, measles) the hard way.

[acct1771]

....and only all exists because people believe there's no alternative.

[davchana]

Well yes, but in India it does not work like this. If I give you a cheque for X amount, you cannot use those numbers mentioned on cheque leaf for any more txns. You can get only that X amount with only that cheque leaf.