I think that is a great thing from Humankind. You can have different kind of methods of doing things. I just wish it's balanced more.

Right now, buying stuffs with money oriented civ is very cheap while buying it with other civ is stupidly expensive.

This makes players do min-max more and give less incentive for a role playing kind of playthrough. Hence less variety in gameplay (because you need to pick more or less the same culture path), hence getting boring fast in a game that promotes more than 1 million culture combination.

Money helps but if you have trouble with Science or Influence, there might be some surprises coming your way from any Expert AI you have included in your game. Keep in mind that difficulty is also influenced by the AI Personas you chose, not only by the level of game difficulty.

I've come to  realize this!  Money is more than just stored production.  If it was, that would be comparing Apples to Apples, and production would usually win, unless there is nothing worthwhile to build in a moment, saving the production for a future case, when the upgraded version of it is worthwhile to build.  Except, money has an apple + an orange function - its not just comparing apples to apples.  Arguablly in this situation, some science FIMS should have been allocated more previously, averting the crisis of nothing worthwhile to build, unless it makes sense to not get a technology to  build something, and wait on it,  being flexible of a now and future state with something worthwhile to build.

So,  the additional benefits of money:

1.  Buying tradable resources seems always worthwhile during a peace, unless war is seriously considered, i think.   (Diplomacy)

2.  During war, money allows bigger armies, because of its maintaince.   (Diplomacy)

3.  Reacting to in game events with reserve money, like Gamble, Adapt, or Protect will avoid taking a "loan" for money, where to pay it back is at a 0% interest rate, and stability I think?  Losing stability from a lack of a minimum balance in the money savings acct isn't a good loan to have, I think.   (Luck)

The question, I have is how much money is needed for  Diplomacy and Narritive Luck?  What should the minimum balance be?  Otherwise, I think,  I prefer production instead of money FIMS, given something to build and science to balance it.