People "hand someone their credit card" every day at restaurants. That doesn't mean that they are waiving fraud protections.
My first week here, my conclusion was that people must be either really honest, and that you get refunded routinely.
What I had in mind is situation where the bar tender has 20+ credit card behind the counters.
In the other example they gave, you would expect the credit card company to work with you to resolve the fraud. Similarly, if a stolen vehicle gets tickets, you don't expect to have to pay them and then try to collect from the thief.
The banking consortium invested in Zelle to put pressure on Visa and Mastercard raising fees; but this is a perfect example of how the banks product isn' as time tested or consumer protecting as credit cards (with US financial regulation)
Debit cards are somewhat less protected than credit though.
You're right about the debit cards. But "premium" accounts offered by banks often have insurance for these too (you get that for free if you make around 2x average wage).