Stealing trust
Timothy P. Carney
Here’s a life hack: If you’re always on the lookout, you can often find ways to rip off other people or take stuff that doesn’t belong to you, and not get caught.
Such is the wisdom dispensed by influencers on TikTok these days, and it’s darkly fitting amid the current crime wave. People have no compunction getting away with whatever they can, and they find that in a high-trust society, you get away with a lot. The result is that we become a low-trust society.
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Witness three recent viral TikTok videos.
“When you and your bestie sneak to a hotel for free breakfast,” read the caption on one TikTok video that garnered over half a million likes. The two women show their waffles, scrambled eggs, and sausage from a Drury hotel.
Another TikTokker got 5 million views on a video of her eating hotel breakfast. “They make it so easy to get the free hotel breakfast when you’re not staying at the hotel.”
In March, one travel influencer with nearly a million followers posted a video about “poor man’s first class.” He encouraged viewers who buy a plane ticket to buy the two other seats in the same row with a fully refundable fare — and then cancel those tickets 45 minutes before the flight takes off.
These are all frauds of opportunity. The opportunity is presented by the institutions — the hotels and the airlines — assuming that very few people will be as dishonest as these TikTokkers are. But now that these young adults have stumbled across them and broadcast the scams to millions of followers, the hotels and airlines might soon have to readjust their assumptions.
Don’t be surprised if you see less tolerant deadlines on refunding fully refundable tickets. Don’t be surprised if your local Hampton Inn puts the breakfast room behind a gate you need to scan into.
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Retailers around the country have already responded to the nationwide shoplifting plague by shifting into low-trust mode. More and more stuff is behind lock and key. The days will soon be gone when you could just fill your cart and check out.
We had a good run as a high-trust society.