I imagined a future where sentient machines decided that mankind needs only one religion so they stop being prejudiced and violent towards each other. The machine brings all the thoughts together from all the holy books in the world. Every Scripture and every religion is one in this world and the sentient machine makes itself into a God. The machine builds a giant talking statue that preaches all the scriptures and everyone must accept the talking statue as their God. Some people refuse to embrace the global religion so their bank accounts are frozen. People get frozen out of all transactions if they don't convert to this religion. The banks were adding more and more stipulations to keep their accounts open and people felt it was unfair, this time they have gone too far. You can't buy anything or get paid without a bank account so being frozen out means abject poverty. You can't even sell anything without a bank account because cash has been abolished.
Along comes a hero, the Barter man. A man that gets by without transactions, he trades stuff with stuff to get stuff. He has one paper clip in his hand, he knows someone needs it to press a reset button on their computer so he swaps the paper clip for a pen. Then he finds someone that needs a pen and swaps for a torch. Someone needs a torch so he swaps it for a drill. Then he swaps the drill for a bar stool, then he finds someone that really wants a bar stool so they swap it for a steam punk lamp. Finally someone gives him visa gift cards with £500 credit on them to get the trendy lamp. In one day the Barter genius traded a paper clip and finished with £500. The key to the man's success was knowing what everyone needs. He can get by very well in this terrible world until the machines start marking followers and killing non compliant people.