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Comment by seventhtiger | Hacker News Reader

They actually do though. First thing to learn when swiping is what's worth swiping, and if no one will buy an iphone paper weight then it's not worth the risk.

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That might account for a small set of scenarios, most times they just go for whatever sticks to their hand, in pockets/purses, without knowing what they'll get. As long as there's devices that can be monetized they will attempt to steal them if they cannot make sure it's not worth it.

And this would account for pros, let alone newbs in stealing, or just irrational behavior, or people who just enjoy creating harm with no gain. I think this is a case where the justification is weak and in reality it's more about greed and control on Apple's side rather than some potential benefit that is actually seriously diluted by a lot of other not mentioned factors.

For example in the UK the police did a sting simply by wearing expensive watches, and caught 31 robbers in a 12 month period.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-68003783

I agree that all the random factors you mentioned exist, and the proportion to random vs targeted theft would be an interesting debate, but there's solid evidence for significant targeted theft. The fencers tell the thieves what to look for.

Yeah it's like saying "home invaders don't know if there is anything good inside they just choose houses at random." The point of the theft is to get something out of it.

I've thankfully never had my house robbed, or a cell phone or laptop stolen. I have had my car broken into. The thieves chucked a paving stone through the window, grabbed a backpack sitting on the passenger's seat, and ran off with it. Left the paving stone in the driver's seat. The backpack had my gym clothes in it. A T-shirt I was rather fond of, a pair of shorts, a few extra pairs of socks, and a shitty pair of sneakers, all were well worn.

Replacing the backpack and gym clothes was probably $100, market value was maybe $10, and it was $507 to fix the window. (my deductible was $500.)

I thought you were going to say "but they ignored the $100 textbook on the dashboard" or something. The anecdote doesn't demonstrate anything. How much of an inconvenience the theft was for you is not a factor for the thief. They got $10 by chucking a rock through a window, and they only lost the opportunity cost of choosing a different victim.

They had to take the cumulative risk of getting caught though - one well-targeted burglary to take a designer handbag or diamond necklace would earn that thief as much as the indiscriminate 'stealing nwallin's gym clothes' thief would make in a year, as long as they had the network to sell the contraband on without incriminating themselves.

That risk is there regardless of what they steal. The kind of thieves who break into cars are low-effort-random-reward. They have neither the patience nor the skill nor the resources for the kind of planning you're referring to. Yes, the bag didn't contain much valuable. A different bag might have. Had the thief known that for a fact beforehand they probably wouldn't have bothered.

Outside nwallin's car: no valuables

Inside nwallin's car: maybe valuables?

There is no risk in may states like California:

I had my apartment broken in at one point many years ago, and the thief basically only bothered to take my MacBook Air. Nothing else was missing.

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