How does that actually work ? It takes only one thief to steal the entire box of payments.
Do they have hidden camera to dissuade people of stealing the box ?
Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
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Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#152I ran into this in California at a small farm along Highway 1 a few miles north of Santa Cruz. It's a scenic ocean side rural locale but near all the big Bay Area cities and frequented by day visitors from there. There was a shack with a good variety of their produce laid out, with price labels. Up front there was a cash box, with about $40 already in it, and a sign that said pay here. This was late '90s. I really ho…
In rural south west England, on holiday last year, the well-stocked local farm shop operated not only an honesty box, but an honesty credit card machine, with detailed instructions how to put a transaction through. The merchant receipt went in the honesty box, of course. I was astonished but pretty pleased, because I was low on cash and far from any ATM.
PayM would be the easy implementation of this, it's the generic mobile phone based bank transfer system for the UK.
In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland the same shop would have a phone number. You type the phone number into the app (which shows the name as confirmation), the amount, and press send. It's not tied to any particular bank.
Unfortunately, the UK system isn't really catching on. Instead, my friends seem to be using proprietary apps which only work for friends at the same bank.
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#153Once I broke the signal in Switzerland and outran the cops sent back the car to the countryside and took bus to the hotel just to find the traffic ticket waiting for me in the room I booked.
I am still not sure how they knew where I am going and which hotel I'll be staying at.
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#154Last year we found a place on the Oregon coast that had a little freezer with Salmon and Halibut. Also a table with Cherries, Peaches, and a few vegetables with an honor box and, interestingly we thought, QR codes to accept BTC and ETH. Halibut was killer, but I paid in USD because my phone was dead.
Haha can I get a +/- 10 mi general area to not kill the goose?
On the 101, South of Garibaldi, North of Lincoln City. :-)
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#155Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this sounds like an article written by someone who lives in a big city and has never been to rural America. This isn't even uncommon; its pretty darn standard. Another common, similar thing you see all over (climatically appropriate) America are fruit orchards where you pay for a bag upfront and you can fill it as full as you want (or take more than the bag, or not even pay for the bag if you're dishonest).
Oh this fruit orchard tradition is so wonderful! I remember going on an outing like this with my friends (We aren't American citizens) and we went absolutely nuts, going on a binge carrying and eating fruits. (We were really hungry after a long road trip). We all felt appropriately guilty afterwards and apologised.
Oh, trust me; those orchards are a cash cow. There's practically no amount of fruit you could have taken which would have caused them material damage. Most of them don't even make most of their money from the fruit; they'll usually have little shops, or processed fruit goods (jams, syrups), or food, or hay rides as well. There's one near me that does the fruit-stuff during the summer, then converts into a haunted farm-type attraction in the fall, and the owner says they make a ton more money in the fall season. The "pick your own fruit" is just to get people in the door, and they usually overcharge like crazy for the bags under the assumption that their customers (A) are gonna take a ton, and (B) will end up buying some other stuff on-site.
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#157As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock their doors. Bartering local goods and services is such an integral part of the rural social fabric that everyone has an interest in making it work well with minimal transaction costs. Part of what makes it work in rural areas is that no one is really anonymous. Th…
In a very small town near where I grew up every household had a key to the gas station. They could fill up whenever they wanted and leave the money on the counter.
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other hints: increased population, increased levels of education, more flavors of ice cream available...
Foreigners now account for 80% of the prison population in Switzerland: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/08/foreigners-make-... IQ scores are falling and have been for decades, new study finds: https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r... https://brainstats.com/average-iq-by-country.html
LOL, Breitbart. Quoting a French language source...
Let's quote the same institution (Swiss Radio/TV) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
TL;DR: If you have legal residency in Switzerland, they'd rather let you serve your time outside of prison; but without residency, you'd probably leave the country if they don't put you in prison. Maybe blame Schengen but it seems most Swiss would rather have borders that are faster to cross...
> The number of foreign detainees has increased significantly. 30 years ago, 56 percent of prison inmates were foreigners, most recently 71 percent. Weber says: "The legislator has increasingly introduced alternatives to prison for Swiss prisoners. I'm thinking of charitable work or electronically supervised house arrest. "
> However, such measures would only be suitable for people with a low risk of escape, ie persons with a secured, legal stay in Switzerland. These are mostly Swiss, but not foreign offenders resident abroad.
> Exactly the proportion of such criminal tourists has recently increased sharply. Over the last decade, they already account for the majority, 52 percent of all inmates. The society has become generally more mobile in the last 30 years, the same applies to offenders, the criminal law professor. "You can travel cheaper than before. So it is more likely that they go from, for example, Eastern European countries to Switzerland for a few days and then travel back."
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mind telling tthe findings? :-)
From memory, one thing that surprised me was holidays. Thefts decrease in the days before a holiday that's basically just a day off for most people, but thefts increase in the days before a holiday that has a strong tradition for getting together with the extended family.
I've always wondering if this was a money issue (ex: how expensive holidays can be), or a stress issue (ex: distracted about the 20 things that need to get done today before the inlaws arrive / deadlines because of employees being out of office)
Re: Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually fairly common in rural areas in America too. Maybe someone sets up a bunch of pumpkins, apples, etc at the end of their driveway (which in rural America can be measured in KM) and a box to put money in.
Even in suburban areas. In San Jose we have Phil Cosentino's J & P Farms on Carter Avenue next to the Camden-85 interchange: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.249591,-121.909198,240m/data... https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x808e340f2c491c5... Sometimes there will be someone out at their fruit stand, but most of the time it runs on the honor system with a money slot where you pay for your produce.
I see this with eggs and wood a lot in the more rural areas of New England. I think it's a simple case where whatever (if any) shrinkage is still significantly less than the cost of monitoring