[wonderbore]

To be fair, when you lose something, you're not only at the mercy of the person who finds it (if they do), but you're also asking a complete stranger to do something for you.

If I have time I could drive across town to deliver something to you, if I don't I'll leave it there.

[Timshel]

Outside of your job I would agree.

But if you find it during your hours then there is probably a procedure defined by your employer so it's not just up to you.

[riedel]

I think the problem is at different level: manufacturers do not actually care that items are retured because they profit from the replacement. This is much worse actually for well insured items like cars. Otherwise it would be easy to set up reward systems for returning lost items. If you like conspiracy theories: I would claim that airtags (e.g. installed on cars) have lead to more 'lost' value than recovered.