Global money transfers
I tried to send money to a friend in Ukraine at the beginning of the war. The best way we thought to do it was Western Union. I found the local branch, sent the money, and figured everything would be fine.
A month later I got a letter in the mail they weren’t able to pick up the money. I sent it via PayPal instead and called support to return the Western Union money.
Everything appeared to be going fine until I tried to go to a location and withdraw the money. I have—so far—gone to 2 different Western Union locations a total of 4 times and each time their systems were down, they didn’t have enough cash, or they closed early.
This small inconvenience is nothing compared to the horribleness Ukraine has faced, but it reminded me that sending money globally to individuals is not even close to a solved problem. And crypto/blockchain/web3 would not have made this easier.