It could provide me utility, and it could get me scammed. That’s the double bind.

(I don’t think delivering the question of trust closer to the user has worked all that well, historically. Why do we expect inexperienced users - who should not have to understand anything technical! - to do better rather than worse when they’re given large numbers of datapoints about a principal’s trustworthiness? The default hypothesis should be that the average user is more susceptible to information fatigue than a technically savvy one.)

I would argue that the technological aspect isn't the most significant. Average people put too much faith into authoritative sources, even in person.

People know what it means to trust and distrust each other without authority. That's the way everyone interacts with everyone else on a regular basis. It's not a new dynamic: it's the most familiar one.

All we need to do is communicate the lack of authority, and the rest will be obvious.