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Comment by aarond0623 | Hacker News Reader

This is confusing to me. You value the time to return the cart more than €1, but not more than €0?

It's a similar phenomenon to day cares dealing with late pickups. They have a few chronically late parents, so they institute a late pickup fee. Parents who always picked their kids up on time because of the implicit agreement now have an explicit agreement that it's okay to pick them up late if they pay a bit more. So the incidences of late pickups actually increased at the day care. You're exchanging a trust based system for financial interactions and some people have very different motivations.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/468061?seq=1

Putting a dollar amount on it quantifies “how much I’m pissing you off” on something that is assumed to be annoying.

It's not an uncommon reaction. There's lots of things that people are on average perfectly willing to do for free but are not willing to do for a pittance sum.

See donating blood.

Very common and widespread in the UK across all social classes. It is done purely altruistically (you will save a life) and the NHS makes life easier by providing pop-up donation clinics in shopping centres and works car parks.

In the US, people are paid to donate blood (!). This makes the whole transaction feel scummy and is, unsurprisingly, something many people avoid doing leaving only the poor to donate for money.

Popup blood donation sites are pretty common in the US, too, though run by orgs like the Red Cross. I've done it a few times, there's no payment involved besides some free snacks + drinks.

> It is done purely altruistically

I agree, but there are some advantages to donating blood regularly. It's a free blood-iron check, they also screen for various diseases and it's probably the most effective way of reducing microplastics in your blood. Also, there's the chance that you might need a blood transfusion yourself, so while you won't be getting your donation back, it means that there's more chance that your blood type will be available if you donate.

The mindset makes sense if you see his as an implicit service. The equivalent is if there was a dedicated cart collector every 2-3 spaces and you pay them $1 to return your cart. Now you're paying for a service.

It's like littering in a park vs not throwing your trash in the bin at a fast food restaurant. One is more of a commons that everyone has responsibility to clean up. The other is a private establishment who will clean up after guests if they don't. I'd rather just be clean regardless but I see the perspective.

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