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Comment by GhostVII | Hacker News Reader

It could do the opposite, borrowers may feel that the late fees justify them keeping the book for longer, since they are paying for their excess usage.

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Kahneman talks about a study done in Israel that adding a modest fee for people who are late picking up their children from daycare actually increases lateness - people view it as a fair transaction, whereas previously they would feel shame if they were late.

For me, it is the opposite. I don't feel any shame from a computer marking a book as "late" in its database. I do feel shame from having to walk up to the library desk and tell the librarian that I owe them $0.50 in late fees. I'll go well out of my way to return books on time, to avoid this shame and not the relatively trivial fee itself.

I think that perhaps strong shame requires a social interaction. (However, I would also be ashamed to pick up my child late from daycare, so maybe my feelings aren't broadly representative.)

Wouldn't most libraries nowadays allow paying fees online? KCLS (King County Library System in Washington) allows that for example. You can maybe try looking at it from another angle and feel proud of supporting your library by giving them money...

Gneezy & Rustichini 2000, ' A fine is a price'

https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine...

(I teach this one on my behavioural econ course).

Thank you for the citation!

Right. I think this is mentioned in the book, Doughnut Economics, in reference to monetizing interpersonal social interactions (tho I may have that reference slightly off. Sorry, in bed and book is sooo far away).

Makes sense. If I’m paying to be late anyway I may as well not rush there.

I have heard about that before also. I think at our childcare, it's $15 per minute. Enough that if we get stuck in traffic, we call a relative and hope they can get there faster.

Wow. Is there at least some capping ? I've never been late to childcare but there are so many reasons I could have been that your $15 are frightening me. I'm not even sure that late fees where I am are above 1 or 2€ per 15 minutes.

At a few bucks per hour, people could leave their kids until 9pm and go out for a quick dinner and movie. That'd be the cheapest babysitting in town.

As said elsewhere, I don't think it's ever enforced, just as backup in case they have someone repeatedly taking advantage of them.

I've often arrived in the last 3-5 minutes. If you are late, staff are forced to hang around, cleaners potentially can't complete their job, etc.

15 USD per minute? Is there a cap? If you get the pickup time 1h wrong you owe them 900USD ...

I don't think it's ever applied. Never actually read further to see if there was a cap; just remember thinking "OK, always get there before 6pm!" It's in AUD, BTW.

$15 per minute seems extortionate. Is the pickup window huge or something?

You can drop off any time after 6:30am and pick-up any time before 6pm. Not really a window as such. I've always assumed the number is just a deterrent - I've been late by a couple of minutes in the past and never noticed a fine. Though that might've been at the discretion of staff (e.g., to penalise lazy, repeat offenders rather than isolated case of traffic due to an accident).

So it's not only extortionate, but also arbitrary? Which favors people who are able to talk themselves out of any situation? Great (not for me though)...

That is actually really profound!

Perhaps the penalty should be a limitation on future book borrowing, then. So that way it's clear it isn't a mutually beneficial (or just zero-sum) transaction, but rather a punishment for being late.

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