just spent time looking at neo-banks and honestly the whole thing feels backwards. the pitch basically comes down to: "people need someone else to manage their money because they'll mess up, so let us (a bank or some organization) be the safety net when things go wrong."

compare that to actually owning your assets outright. no middleman deciding if your transaction is "suspicious." no waiting for permission. no depending on some institution to bail you out when you need access to your own funds. the difference is pretty stark when you see it laid out like that.