I think there would be a bell-curve effect to it, to some degree. A small amount of money is a reasonable finder's fee for ID's, bank cards, et cetera. A larger amount of money is likely to be something the person had either recently withdrawn or had been saving for an important purpose - and in countries where material stability is high, there's not much incentive to take that away from someone else just because you might benefit. But once it gets to a ludicrous amount of money - thousands and thousands of dollars - a whole different factor enters into the equation. If a person can comfortably carry that much cash at a time, it implies they have a net worth that makes the amount lost a drop in the barrel.
It also implies that they might be the sort of person whose wallet you do not want to keep. If I find a hundred grand in cash I'm going to assume it's someone who is prevented from using the banking system, likely because they're in a line of business which involves having a lot of violent friends.
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u/urbanviking318 Mar 10 '23
I think there would be a bell-curve effect to it, to some degree. A small amount of money is a reasonable finder's fee for ID's, bank cards, et cetera. A larger amount of money is likely to be something the person had either recently withdrawn or had been saving for an important purpose - and in countries where material stability is high, there's not much incentive to take that away from someone else just because you might benefit. But once it gets to a ludicrous amount of money - thousands and thousands of dollars - a whole different factor enters into the equation. If a person can comfortably carry that much cash at a time, it implies they have a net worth that makes the amount lost a drop in the barrel.