Absence & nothing
Defaulting absence
When absence just needs a fallback, reach for ??:
None on the left, so you get "anonymous". Give nick a real value and ?? hands that back untouched instead — the fallback only fires on None.
?? works on Optional, and only Optional. That’s deliberate: it’s the gentle “I don’t care why it’s missing” default. A Result (later) carries a reason for its failure, and silently defaulting that reason away would be exactly the dishonest hole Ascent refuses — so ?? isn’t allowed there. Seeing ?? tells you the left side is an optional, every time.