Comment by eli
5 hours ago
Risky move making a point that relies on made-up numbers.
At least in the US, there are roughly the same number of bank branches today as 20 years ago. And I think you would have to compare to hundreds of years ago to find anything like a 99% decline in farm laborers.
When it comes to banking, the US is an outlier in many ways; its diversity of banks (which may play a role in the survival of so many physical locations) doesn't necessarily apply to other countries where there may be only 4-5 full-scale banks and they have all taken extreme cost-cutting measures. In Finland, for example, physical bank branches started to be slashed well over a decade ago.
We (US) are so far behind (at least) the UK and EU in terms of banking apps that comparing the two physical bank branch situations is ridiculous.
If we are making up numbers, I’d be willing to bet there are more farm laborers today than at the height of farming pre mechanization.
I’d make a similar bet for assembly programmers. People say “no one programs in assembly anymore”, but I’d guess today there are more assembly programmers than when everyone programmed assembly.