[Waterluvian]

I have a great example from today of the efficiency of trust.

I went to a three storey old factory turned into an antiques store. 150 000 square feet. Three floors of booths of all kinds of stuff. Coins, cards, collectibles, toys, furniture, everything. The whole place had maybe five visible employees. It was all consignment. You'd pick up $300 worth of nicknacks from the top floor and walk it down to the first floor to buy. It's incredibly easy to steal from if you wanted.

So what I see are hundreds of individual vendors that don't need to be at their booth because of the trust between vendors, the managers, and the public.

If we were part of a culture where theft was all but guaranteed, that store just wouldn't be able to exist.

[skybrian]

Very true, trust matters, but it might help a bit that many antiques aren't useful in themselves and aren't that easy to sell. If they were selling razors or baby formula, maybe things would be different?

Do you think they have cameras?

[Waterluvian]

I don't want to get into the implementation details of this store as that's not the point of my anecdote. Either trust me that this place was an example of trust, or don't. ;)

[codedokode]

Coins are easy to sell.