Why is regular money not programmable?

This might be a simplistic question, so forgive me: as I understand, the advantage of cryptocurrencies, and ETH in particular, is being able to “program” money: eg embed smart contracts, send money easily electronically, etc.

However, why can’t you do this with regular dollars? We already have e-banking and I can send dollars electronically. Couldn’t someone write code to include conditions on that money as well? Why is crypto a step up?