Look into the concept of a gift economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Communities would have social norms revolving around the exchange of goods without expectation of sone kind of payment. You do what you can to provide for your community, and in turn your community provides to you as well.

In pre-history, it was believed to be mostly social obligation, gifts, and verbal debts. Such systems work when the groups are very, very small and communities can enforce debts and obligations through social pressure. As the other poster said more succinctly: social credit.

After the domestication of animals, animals and plant products were used as money.

Social credit

It could potentially look like a timebank (https://www.timebanks.org/). Timebanks are a means of exchanging labor wherein everyone’s time is valued equally. By performing services for someone anywhere in a timebank network, e.g. hOurworld.org, you receive that time which you can then use to receive services from someone else.

Most likely it would be a barter system. Really money is just a standard system of value given previously. Theoretically a modern world without money would be if you ran a database for a farm in exchange for say 10 chickens a week and your rent would be say 12 chickens a month. Then you go around shopping for a new apartment but get denied because the apartment complex already get paid too many chickens and are now only accepting new clients paying in potatoes. So now you have to find someone willing to exchange 12 chickens a month for 200 potatoes per month.

It was probably bartering before and if money was never made it would still be the same to this day. Trading lowkey fucken sucks without some form of backed currency. But I’d be totally down to show up at someone’s house and sing some cover songs and originals if they would come over and fix my pipes.

We only got money in Australia 250 years ago. Before then we had communism, and it was awesome.