I agree. Trust is not binary. It's a highly fluid calculation tht we make using mental machinery not even accessible to our conscious mind. Trust/distrust mechanisms are far older than our species and are highly nuanced.

And yes, trust online involves many of the same mechanisms short of body language that are used in our web of trusts in the 'real' world. You tend to trust people whose thinking you can understand, who've dealt well with your in the past, who've dealt well with others that we trust. It's all a mental calculus, that while refined by experience, is significantly instinctive.

Without this subtle skill society could not function. So much resources (mental and physical) would be consumed by protection of self and assets that cooperation would be impossible.

No trust is immune to being misplaced, and the close trusts violated are far more emotionally devastating than trusts that are more at arms length (violation of trust by spouse vs by a hired contractor, for example)