Comment by jasode

>Taken in isolation, the optimal amount is clearly zero.

But the very point of the article is to not take zero-fraud in isolation and instead, explain how non-zero-fraud is an unavoidable tradeoff when balancing 2 simultaneous goals:

- (1) prevent fraud transactions as much as practically possible

- (2) make legitimate transactions as easy as possible

If one accepts the premise of pursuing those 2 goals at the same time, then by definition, we're no longer talking about "in isolation". You've now unavoidably entered non-zero fraud territory.

Perhaps it's the author's particular wordsmithing of what he's trying to convey that just rubs many readers the wrong way.