Never used one myself, but I've heard of shopping carts in the United States that require a deposit of one quarter. I guess other coins don't work because their size isn't right to trigger the mechanism. Many stores also have a device on the wheel that locks when you get a certain distance away from the parking lot, to prevent theft. I suppose the problem with a deposit is that you're basically indefinitely renting it, which amounts to selling it, for a value lower than what the cart is worth, so from the American perspective maybe the rational thing to do is simply make that purchase and keep the cart forever. Maybe that's why it's less common here.
Cart brakes that engage once the cart is off the owner's lot are used primarily as theft deterrent. It is VERY popular for the homeless to abscond with this property of the merchant and use it to, you know, improve their lives; this is used as a sort of mobile hold-all for everything they own.
@@bothewolf3466 Yeah it's definitely mainly homeless people I see taking carts. Plus people where I live people constantly take cans out of recycling bins to sell, and having a cart helps a lot with that. When you're homeless or low income it's quite obvious that a shopping cart is worth more than a quarter
That is interesting. Yes, money is very much locked into social conventions and norms. Anthropologists and numismatists have independently have taken issue with a lot of the assumptions of rationality in economics (to be fair a lot of economists have). I am reminded of an example given by Steven Levitt in which he pointed to a nursery that introduced a fine for parents who collected their children late, and discovered that the fine increased the number of late parents (they now saw the fine as a charge and this freed them from the moral restraint which has made them unwilling to inconvenience the staff).
@@HistoricalPerspectiveRBr Yeah, the "homo econimicus" of Econ 101 is a rare sight in real life. But when times are tough, people get desperate and they lose faith in the social contract, so you see it more and more. The last few years where I live things have been especially bad, lots of people have started thinking that anything not bolted down is free. Things seemed to be getting a little better but then given the debate a few days ago, I'm not so sure anymore. At least I have videos about Indian history to take my mind off the present situation.
I try to like and comment on every video cause this channel is so much more deserving of views than the stuff the algorithm usually promotes. I hope it gets really popular someday
Never used one myself, but I've heard of shopping carts in the United States that require a deposit of one quarter. I guess other coins don't work because their size isn't right to trigger the mechanism. Many stores also have a device on the wheel that locks when you get a certain distance away from the parking lot, to prevent theft. I suppose the problem with a deposit is that you're basically indefinitely renting it, which amounts to selling it, for a value lower than what the cart is worth, so from the American perspective maybe the rational thing to do is simply make that purchase and keep the cart forever. Maybe that's why it's less common here.
Cart brakes that engage once the cart is off the owner's lot are used primarily as theft deterrent. It is VERY popular for the homeless to abscond with this property of the merchant and use it to, you know, improve their lives; this is used as a sort of mobile hold-all for everything they own.
@@bothewolf3466 Yeah it's definitely mainly homeless people I see taking carts. Plus people where I live people constantly take cans out of recycling bins to sell, and having a cart helps a lot with that. When you're homeless or low income it's quite obvious that a shopping cart is worth more than a quarter
That is interesting. Yes, money is very much locked into social conventions and norms. Anthropologists and numismatists have independently have taken issue with a lot of the assumptions of rationality in economics (to be fair a lot of economists have). I am reminded of an example given by Steven Levitt in which he pointed to a nursery that introduced a fine for parents who collected their children late, and discovered that the fine increased the number of late parents (they now saw the fine as a charge and this freed them from the moral restraint which has made them unwilling to inconvenience the staff).
@@HistoricalPerspectiveRBr Yeah, the "homo econimicus" of Econ 101 is a rare sight in real life. But when times are tough, people get desperate and they lose faith in the social contract, so you see it more and more. The last few years where I live things have been especially bad, lots of people have started thinking that anything not bolted down is free. Things seemed to be getting a little better but then given the debate a few days ago, I'm not so sure anymore. At least I have videos about Indian history to take my mind off the present situation.
4 likes? And I am one of them....Criminal. #FeedtheAlgorithim
I try to like and comment on every video cause this channel is so much more deserving of views than the stuff the algorithm usually promotes. I hope it gets really popular someday