You are standing on infrastructure you never chose. It is all around you, and under your feet right now: the systems that move your money, carry your messages, hold your data, do the work. You did not design any of it. You did not vote on it. Most days, you do not even see it.
Until it fails to work the way you expect. Then you notice: this could have been simpler. Cheaper. Easier for everyone involved. So why wasn’t it built that way?
The next few pages answer that, in a single afternoon, at a restaurant counter in Spain.