That is, it's not only the common experience that matters, but the outliers too. The basic tools of society should be available even if you're ugly, annoying, or a minority.
Though of course the modern problem isn't that there is only one bank, it's that there is only one bank regulator which subjects all of the banks to the same incentives, and if those rule you out you're effectively prohibited from using a bank in another jurisdiction with different rules.
What you need for this is something permissionless.
I ended up chatting to one of the bouncers at a bar a while back and he was telling me about how they refused entry to someone not long before because they were flagged as having caused trouble in a bar 70 miles away.
In some regards I’m not even against this, if you have a record of attacking women in bars I don’t want you in the bar I’m at, but this does seem incredibly prone to abuse. I can totally see someone who has a grudge getting people banned from every pub in the country.
They can break in different ways. If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight.
In any case, this is a false premise: it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check.
> What you need for this is something permissionless.
Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist.
What is clear, however, is that you're better off with both systems existing in parallel because then you can use either one, rather than having the informal one prohibited by law so that you're forced into the other one whether it works for you or not.
> it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check.
You are choosing from 5 local pubs. Even if you don't attend one regularly, it's in the same town. You could have mates there who vouch for you. Or you go to the pub of the person who wrote the check, they confirm that they actually wrote it and then it gets cashed on the basis of their standing rather than yours.
> Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist.
You want a regulated and insured entity where you can safely store your money, sure. That doesn't explain why they should have a monopoly on various other aspects of finance though. Or why they would even need a monopoly on that -- if you want the assurances you get from a regulated bank, there they are. If you want a permissionless money transfer system that anybody can use and nobody can be refused, why shouldn't that exist too?
