Net settlement is a useful abstraction. Instead of a fully meshed network with every bank account in the country that was active that day having to be settled against each other, you can reduce the number of nodes to “just” the 14,000 banks and credit unions in the USA. Even that is simplified by running interbank settlement through a central clearinghouse at the Federal Reserve.
As long as operating a connection between two accounts has a non-zero cost and resolving consistency problems has a non-zero cost net settlement will be cheaper and easier.
As long as operating a connection between two accounts has a non-zero cost and resolving consistency problems has a non-zero cost net settlement will be cheaper and easier.