India is a low trust society.

But I have seen some progress over time.

Earlier, after each Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment, merchants would check your phone to verify. Nowadays, I rarely see auto-rickshaw drivers or merchants wait to verify. They move on to the next customer. Yes, UPI payment confirmation sounds are common. But in auto-rickshaws and similar settings, they don’t have that. It is just that they assume you would not cheat them.

But for every positive step, we have issues like the food adulteration scandals that go viral and make people doubt whether they can trust by default.

Websites have trust markers. They display logos of partners. They show logos of their venture capitalists (VCs).

But I was thinking about what are proxies for offline merchants.

Most local eateries have open kitchens. You know your food is prepared fresh. You can see it made in sanitary conditions. You watch it being prepared in front of you. The fact that the restaurant has spoons in hot water makes me trust them more. If they care about the spoons, they probably care about the ingredients too.