I'm certainly not a snitch, but my respect only goes towards people who are stealing what they need rather than what they want - the former is surviving the struggle, the other is kleptomania
Exactly, exactly - though I wouldn't judge people taking non-food items like soap, detergent, and other basic hygene products either. They're low cost goods most people need but might not be able to afford.
Whenever I mention groceries being expensive, I have a few people comment that it's my own fault for buying name brands, and I agree, name brands aren't worth it when you're pinching pennies.
But I have allergies, and I have to be careful with shared equipment. I've had allergic reactions to certain brands of oats but not others, so even a cheap staple food like oats I may end up paying way more than the average person because I can't risk certain brands.
Sometimes that works in the opposite direction too, in a quest to find a brand of veggie stock powder I wasn't allergic to, I ended up riding my bike to the next town to try their asain grocers and found a huge 500g tin of stock powder for like $4, easily 5 times cheaper than any other brand at my usual store, and I wouldn't have gone hunting for it had the previous brand not changed their ingredients as part of a whole shrinkflation/cheaper ingredients for the same price end product initiative.
But I often wonder if people saw someone like me stealing, or using food stamps today buy name brand products, would they prejudge me as being superfluous without knowing my allergies already severely limit my diet, brand restrictions limit it even more.
I'm not personally that worried, I just don't understand how so many people in this thread are saying they would/wouldn't judge a shoplifter based on a bunch of arbitrary criteria for what they think is an essential item. You can't possibly know what's essential to an complete stranger.
I doubt people are stealing directly from Nike. They would be stealing from Foot Locker or some shit, which means Nike already made their buck off the shoes. But whatever justification people need to snag a free pair of shoes, I guess.