Anyone coming to the US from most of the world is painfully aware of how antiquated the whole system is. For a business accepting relatively few large payments, a major issue is the cost of payment.
For all their absurdity, paper checks are the only universally accepted almost-costless way to transfer money. ACH, wire transfer, card payments all come with an added cost of up to 3%, and every single proposed replacement system we've seen comes with new fees attached. For a payment of $10,000, payment by check costs perhaps $1. Payment by a 1% fee wire transfer system (most of them cost more) would be $100. Flat fee wire transfers range from $30 / transfer up.
Given how big and archaic ACH is now, and how expensive replacing it would be, I can't see a way out of this unless banks are required by regulation to provide an aggressively low-cost transfer mechanism.
The difference being that with your spouse you often have an explicit promise of fidelity. You don't owe your employer yourself, they pay you for your time. I think the assumption that "accepting the coffee" equates to an assessment that the current job is unsatisfactory is not as consistently correct as the author implies.
Sometimes accepting the coffee is just taking the opportunity to learn more about the ecosystem you're in. A job can satisfy you in terms of the work, the environment, and the pay, but it can't teach you what it feels like to stand somewhere with a different view. "Accepting the coffee" is an opportunity to stand there.
You don't start learning a functional language because you've made an assessment that you've reached the limits of imperative languages – you learn a new language because in part because it gives you new perspective that, critically, often cannot be gained without going there yourself.
For all their absurdity, paper checks are the only universally accepted almost-costless way to transfer money. ACH, wire transfer, card payments all come with an added cost of up to 3%, and every single proposed replacement system we've seen comes with new fees attached. For a payment of $10,000, payment by check costs perhaps $1. Payment by a 1% fee wire transfer system (most of them cost more) would be $100. Flat fee wire transfers range from $30 / transfer up.
Given how big and archaic ACH is now, and how expensive replacing it would be, I can't see a way out of this unless banks are required by regulation to provide an aggressively low-cost transfer mechanism.