I think trust in general is overrated as a concept. Even after 20 years of working in software business, it is shocking to me how gullible many Westerners are b

I think trust in general is overrated as a concept. Even after 20 years of working in software business, it is shocking to me how gullible many Westerners are because they are ready to trust people by default. No surprise they are getting duped more often than not. In fact, i believe decline of trust is mainly due to globalisation: when Westerners get to meet and work with people from low-trust countries, their trust level naturally decreases. I would go on to say is that levels of trust, for the mutual economic and social benefit, need to be dramatically decreased across the board. No credit card chargebacks, no ACH, use of escrow for all non-trivial transactions, improved methods for identity verification, and overall teaching people that they should not try to "build reputation" or rely too much on someone's reputation: reputation is just a metric, and every metric is a hackable metric. Relying on it only makes you a victim of someone who is better at gaming the system.