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Comment by robonerd | Hacker News Reader

Relying on the honor system may be less effective, but I prefer it anyway because it feels a whole lot less demeaning. No quarter is essentially the store saying 'We trust you to do the right thing' whereas the quarter says 'betcha we can make you behave with a quarter'

Also, stray shopping carts left in the lot really doesn't seem like a big problem worth solving to me. The lots all have cart returns scattered throughout them, so you're never very far from one, and the vast majority of people use them.

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During the pandemic many stores in Germany left all the carts unlocked and it seems that some of them didn't go back to the old system. So probably they've realized it's a silly thing to do and maybe it actually bring more customers if you left the carts unlocked. I actually used to chose stores that don't require a coin to unlock the carts.

I prefer the pragmatic approach of assuming (not without evidence) that people won't behave without incentive. I'm much more annoyed by carts all over the parking lot than I am by temporarily putting a coin in a slot. And I like the happy side effect of not seeing miserable teenagers in vests tasked with collecting rogue carts on cold nights.

Why does the teenager have that job, and would the teenager be happier without a job?

Besides teenagers, grocery stores often hire mentally impaired people for bagging and cart wrangling. They seem to enjoy the work more than the teenagers.

No worries, comparatively little of their time is spent cart wrangling and if that responsibility did not exist it more than likely would not impact their employment status in any meaningful way.

> Why does the teenager have that job, and would the teenager be happier without a job?

Isn't the point here that the teenager has that job because there are no coin slots in carts, so there has to be someone collecting the carts?

I don't know if the teenager would be happier without a job, but that is a bit of a leading question - it's not like fetching carts is the only job that exists. Maybe they would prefer to work a different job that doesn't involve cart wrangling, and involves spending more time doing something useful.

Maybe, but it's not like the collecting-carts job destroys that other job.

In some sense you are right. But it's extremely common for people to behave as if they believed in 'out of sight, out of mind'.

That's a big part of the reason to we don't let poor migrants into the country (almost whichever rich country you live in), and work menial jobs without a social safety net. 'Who wants to look at poor, miserable people?' Better to leave them to rot in other countries where we don't have to look at them..

Exactly this. Also, for example, no security cameras at Trader Joe's and no scales in the self checkout at Whole Foods. I'm a grownup, you don't need forcing functions to make me behave like one.

Note that in just about any store here that uses coin operated carts you can go to the service desk and ask for a coin for the cart and get it. It's really not about the money, though I see how it can feel like it is.

I figure the coin is really just mostly there as a signifier that it's your job to return the cart and not some store employees job.

I was more thinking of carts strewn throughout the city.

But, I guess, American supermarkets are not anywhere near the cities.

All three of the grocery stores I shop at are in the city. All three of them have honor system cart returns, and I've never seen a stray cart in my neighborhood. Even the homeless seem to leave the carts alone, or at least stash them where they won't be seen.

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