People shoplifting from big chain stores is how food deserts are created.

It costs tens of thousands of dollars per day to keep a single Walmart open. If a store isn't selling that much in merchandise every day, they're losing money.

You might think, "me stealing one bag of chips isn't hurting anyone", but if a thousand people are all thinking the same thing, that's a thousand people who are all stealing chips, among other things. That adds up, and that cuts into their operating costs.

Of course, you don't care about that, but here's the thing: a big retail chain might be able to absorb millions of dollars of revenue lost due to theft, but they're under no obligation to do so, and they can and will close a store if it isn't profitable simply because keeping an unprofitable store open is wasting their money.

When you shoplift, you're not harming the big, bad corporation. The corporation can simply close that store and instantly make back whatever was lost from their thousands of other locations, just by cutting the dead weight. They'll make the decision as dispassionately as they would discontinuing a product or laying off unneeded employees. It's all just numbers to them. They don't care.

It's the people who relied on that store who are out of luck. Those are the ones hurt by shoplifting.

When those stores close, the people in those communities have fewer places to shop. It should be obvious, but this hurts low income people who can't easily travel far to get food or other necessities. This harms the poor.

These are those second-order effects people on Twitter and Reddit never think about.

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