h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Let's say that there's a snack machine and one of the items is just barely hanging, so you bump the machine a little to make it fall and you get a free snack.
Is this stealing?

Yes.

You could always pay for the object after the event if you wanted to. These sorts of action are quite common and there is a belief that they are victimless. Sure the value involved is very small but the principle is the issue.

Technically, yes. Morally? I don't know. How many times have you lost your money to similar machines. Maybe that's just Karma coming back at you, baby!

Of course, ask me if I'd feel guilty eating said snack. Yes, I would.

Myjo

I would say that its morally wrong as well. Simply that you are balancing your missfortune with someone elses.

*The scene: a chocolate bar sweatshop-factory in the SEC (Special Economic Zone) outside Kowloon, China.

Foreman: Worker scum! One of our products is unaccounted for! Because of this, you will all be *flogged*!

I do not think. Chow down, stinkywigfiddle.

No, it's more insidious than that. Shops apparently account for "shrinkage" (shoplifting to you and me) in their pricing structure. End result? Higher prices. Similarly, that other famous "victimless crime" - artificially inflating your insurance claim. Results in higher premiums for everyone. Your action may be one in a large number, but it is the aggregate of all these actions that lead to macro economic effects.

If you want the snack bar that much, pay for it. They don't cost much.

However, if you are subsequently beaten to a bloody pulp by the previous user of the machine, who inserted their hard-earned cash and saw their chosen product fail to drop, but observed the "Do not shake the machine" sign and went to alert the proper authorities, you have no-one but yourself to blame.

If you did pay for it, the machine would spit out two, right?

Technically, the item has already been paid for. The odds of tracking down the person who bought it are astronomical...

I'd say you were in the clear.

I've never seen a "do not shake the machine" sign on a snack machine before. Do they have these?
I've had many times where that is the only way to get the snack you paid for, if you don't want to pay for it twice, which I have also done.

I lost my last peice of pocket change to a vending machine last week. So I say up them. If it's half out then it's paid for.

As for the inflated prices due to shrinkage. Don't belive it. If shrinkage dissapeared tomorrow then the explanation would become "distribution costs"

But I'm cynical because I've been a sales person and I'm still smarting because in 1995 they said software would become cheaper because CDs are so much cheaper than floppies to produce.

Did it happen? no. Was the internet to blame? not yet at that time.

Hmm. Probably someone bought the snack and it didn't come out. So if you get it the vending machine people haven't lost any money - you have effectively taken a snack from whoever put the money in. If you go complain when your snacks get stuck and get your money back you probably shouldn't take it, otherwise so long as you leave as many snacks dangling as you claim it should all work out all right.

You can apply the same principle to shrinkage, I had stats a while ago that showed for every 13 games I bought i would have had 14 if there were no theft/piracy. Thus if I end up getting a warez copy for every 13 games I buy I have got 14 games and I have paid what 14 games should have cost me. Thus I see no moral problems.

While you wouldn't be doing anything wrong you would be doing something illegal. I would never and have never done this. I would not advise you to do this. In fact if you accused me of such I would so outraged that you might think that, that I couldn't possibly comment.

You didn't get those figures from the BSA report did you?

Software piracy is only measured in 4 or 5 countries and extrapolated for the rest of the world. Any machine not running windows is counted in piracy figures (ie any install of linux is called piracy). If that weren't bad enough. Figures are passed to BSA members for modification before release (members include IBM and M$).

So where does the blame go for a crappy product with bad sales?

Bill Gates.

In an honest world

In the real world, linux users> Which M$ see as one and the same

There is a reason you are not supposed to shake the machine....cause it can fall on you or hit you ....and kill you!!!

If you're big enough to knock a venging machine over then you're big enough for it not to kill you.

Techically, I suppose it is stealing but most people, including me, would do it.

Losses of this sort are taken into account when the prices are set anyway. If they weren't the vendors wouldn't make enough profit to keep them in business since the losses are bound to occur.

Really, there's no need to feel more than jut a teeny bit guilty!

I would have not a single smidgen of guilt in eating that choccy bar.

I once spent a happy few minutes in a railway station in Brussels, trying to buy snacks for the journey home.

Every time I selected a packet of crisps, it got stuck dangling at the end. So I had to carefully select the packet of soft mints above it which would fall on top of the crisps and bring them along to the exit.

Ah, what fun we had!