[ghaff]

>“everyone’s doing it!” norm where people start shifting how they feel about it.

Yeah. A lot of people won't do something that they think is sort of scummy if they only know one person who does it--and he's sort of an asshole.

But when there's a whole subreddit devoted to the behavior, they may start to think they're the sucker if they don't do what "everyone else" is doing.

And unfortunately with outdoor gear, I've definitely had fairly expensive outdoor gear fail catastrophically after a few years even though it had only been gently used a handful of times. That said, I suspect LL Bean and REI still have some flexibility. I did just have Patagonia credit me for a somewhat older jacket that had completely delaminated--of course their normal prices are so high I'm not sure I'll even use the credit.

[acdha]

> But when there's a whole subreddit devoted to the behavior, they may start to think they're the sucker if they don't do what "everyone else" is doing.

That matched what I saw, too - I’m thinking especially of people like a few grad students I vaguely knew who treated it as a way to “upgrade” from their personal equipment for big trips. They wouldn’t have stolen something worth that much but the loss to REI is invisible.