How does hyperinflation even work in a country like the United States, in an age like ours?

If you needed a wheelbarrow of cash to buy break at the bakery, it was still true that there was a tiny downward pressure from the baker in that the bread would eventually rot, so he might as well sell it now if they were just shy of the asking price.

If everyone's buying household goods off of Amazon, their pricing algorithm will never be even that much forgiving.

When it last happened here, many workers were still being paid in cash as soon as the timeclock whistle went off on Friday. Now everything's direct deposit, but not necessarily instantaneous. At my last job, the funds were released at midnight that payday, but with the current job for some reason they're not released until the morning (business open, I imagine).

Are people going to starve, because they have the wrong bank and the money's not there for several hours before everyone else's and it has lost too much value?

What makes you think hyperinflation is coming? If anything, inflation seems to have peaked and is now starting to fall. The only way I can see hyperinflation happening is if there’s another major conflict, climate change causes some major simultaneous disasters, or some kind of black swan event like another pandemic. Of course, individual countries might see hyperinflation if they’re mismanaged (e.g Argentina right now) but I can’t see it happening globally except in the cases listed above.

> If anything, inflation seems to have peaked and is now starting to fall.

Before folks make comments about currency still inflating (gerund), let us stipulate that the noun "Inflation" is a positive rate and the rate has recently decreased. Let us all be thankful that there exists some amount of inflation which in a broad sense reflects a growing and dynamic world (how closely remains to be seen) as opposed to deflation.