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> You can’t have a pay-later business without an amount of non-payment, which has to be compensated by higher prices (which other customers shoulder).

People who never experienced high-trust and customs societies cannot grasp why and how it works infinitely better than low-trust ones.

But granted, all it takes is a few determined bad faith actors to break high-trust, when they are not vehemently and swiftly rejected…




For this to work, you need society as a whole to participate in enforcement.

But we have created an environment where this kind of thing is unthinkable, not even because people won't do it, but because they will only create legal trouble for themselves if they try. So the modus operandi for your average citizen in Western societies in general and US in particular is to not get involved and leave it all to law enforcement.


Not to mention the people who actively vilify anyone who "snitches" on the person by turning them in to suffer the consequences of their own actions. Luigi anyone?


Can you elaborate?



It is totally thinkable, and it does happen. However, you get to this by vetting people/customers in.

This is why some things can’t be found/bought without hetting the right path/contacts.


I don't know if I would classify "consume first, pay later" as high trust. Example: Hotel "honor bars".


I'd expect the hotel to already have a payment method on file, and possibly have pre-cleared a large charge to hedge against consumption or damage (with unused portion of the charge removed during checkout).

Contrast with the typical restaurant.


Hotels generally handle this very graciously, having indeed a pre-clearance on a payment method.

Moreover, trespassers, in addition to pursuit, often get flagged in a shared « do not host » book file across hotel lines.




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