Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
75 comments
·September 5, 2025yorwba
coldtea
Doesn't matter that they have cameras on top to monitor etc - it's still a high true, high order society that enables it.
Sn Francisco super markets on the other hand (and increasingly everywhere else), have to lock cheeses and baby formulas
rjh29
There are plenty of unmanned frozen food shops (gyoza etc.) with one CCTV. On the rare occasion that someone steals food, it is taken seriously and investigated.
People have been arrested here for grabbing a medium combini coffee cup and using it to serve a large coffee.
pelagicAustral
I know this is besides the point, incredibly petty and borderline psychotic, but... if you can fill your medium cup with the amount of a large one, wouldn't that mean that the store is the one cheating on you? The way this is playing in my head is: I grab the medium cup, try to outsmart the universe and pour a large into it, coffee overflows in my hand, and I watch justice being served as my hand gets burn and I cannot scream because that would denounce my scam.
traceroute66
> you need to pass through facial recognition to enter the store and there are multiple cameras tracking whether you try to leave without paying.
Totally irrelevant point.
Walk into any supermarket in a Western country these days.
The place is crawling in CCTV.
The packets of steak and other "expensive" stuff have RFID anti-theft tags on them.
The self-service checkouts have close-up CCTV and anti-theft weight comparison systems.
Many even employ security contractors to stand by the door.
Does it prevent thefts ?
Does it hell. The scumbag steals the goods and says F** Y** to the security guard on the way out. By the time the police get there (if they can even be bothered to turn up for such a minor crime) its too late.
So yes, I am with the original blog. CCTV or not, the sort of thing shown in the blog could only happen in Japan.
bapak
> the police actually showing up and doing something about it when they report a theft.
That and this whole concept can only happen in places with low criminality. In Thailand I occasionally find small shops that have a CCTV and that's it (but the total value of goods on display likely does not exceed $100)
socalgal2
I wonder what does it take to get a society to have low criminality. IIUC Japan wasn't always this way. Could other societies become high trust? Singapore is. It wasn't always
Tade0
If self-checkout stores[0] are a measure of being such a place: Ageing of society. I've read last year's statistics about my country's criminality and two things stand out:
1. It's half what it was 20 years ago.
2. The largest group of perpetrators are people in their mid 30s, not 17-20yo like it was two decades ago and they focus on online fraud, not actually going places to commit crimes.
[0] Specifically corner shops with a self-checkout machine and just one person behind the non-self checkout counter who wouldn't be able to react anyway should anyone leave with the goods.
madaxe_again
Or just the insurers paying up because the police provided a crime number.
This is how it works in the U.K. - everyone has cctv, not because it prevents theft or allows the police to investigate, but rather because it allows you insurance coverage for any losses.
Anonbrit
If insurance became expensive enough (and logically the price must continue to rise as claims increase) then there will be a financial advantage for companies to design their shops not to need such insurance
RataNova
Pure honor systems don't scale well in cities, even in Japan
hilbert42
That's wonderful, but it's not a big surprise for me.
When in Tokyo I encountered vending machines on a public street (the Ginza) that dispensed bottles of whiskey—Suntory if I recall—that operated 24 hours a day. If you wanted a drink at 3AM you could get it.
Where I am that vending machine would be vandalized overnight and the owner of such an appliance shop would be broke and out of business the next day.
Shame really.
Edit: A Westerner but longtime resident of Japan told me when I was working there of a hotel robbery where an American tourist had valuables and jewelry worth a substantial sum taken from her hotel room. The robbery was big enough to make the newspapers which led to the return of the jewelry. The thief after seeing the news story returned them with a message to the effect "Sorry, I wouldn't have stolen them if I'd known you were a visiting tourist".
Perhaps the story is apocryphal but it and other stories such as if you lose your wallet there's good chance it'll be returned complete with cash—is testament to the honesty of Japanese people.
adrian_b
While visiting Japan last year, I have witnessed a scene when one of my companions forgot his wallet, which also contained an expensive smartphone, in a train, when we have changed quickly the trains, and someone from the other train ran really, really fast, to catch us in the other train and give the forgotten wallet to its owner.
Than he ran equally fast to his train, which was ready to leave. Had he not run so fast while returning the wallet to its owner, he would have lost his train. Therefore, doing a good deed had required quite an effort for that Japanese, but this had not dissuaded him.
rjh29
Those vending machines are supposed to check ID but I've never seen one do (I think cigarette machines do). They just turn off at night and apparently that's enough to stop children from using them.
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bob1029
You still see little islands of high trust in the US. I walked out of an HEB the other day and there were several pickup trucks idling in the parking lot with nobody inside of them. You could open the door and drive off with zero effort if you could find the insanity to do so. I often dont bother to lock my doors at home. The Walmart here doesn't hassle you upon exiting. The local community feels incredibly safe. Drive 20 miles south and you'll find a totally different universe.
NaOH
Sorta related:
Honesty Boxes in Scotland (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44824684 - Aug 2025 (59 comments)
FugeDaws
Even shops with security guards dont work in the UK at the moment. It's a shame this could never be a thing here.
n4r9
It's tempting to see security guards as a basic response to criminal behaviour. But I wonder if the causality is more complex than that. I can easily imagine growing up under different circumstances to view society as a case of "me" vs "them", and I'd be more inclined to lift from shops run by people who clearly see me as enough of a low-life that they'd pay some thugs to man-handle me out.
lesostep
I live in a city where self-checkout was implemented for bus rides.
You still had a chance for a random bus inspection, but generally you can just walk into the bus and not pay anything, then walk out.
It was so strange at first, to see everyone paying when there was no authority demanding a payment.
Knowing that government trusts people around me to behave like good citizens, and knowing how many people actually follow the rules, definitely helped me to feel safer in the city.
15 years ago you had to put your wallet in the inner pocket because bags and outer pockets routinely got slashed. Now I can leave my bag on a bench. This difference got erased only when economy became more stable, and employment went up.
But I didn't know that I could leave my bag on a bench before I saw with my own eyes that almost everyone tries to be a good citizen. Even if there is no punishment and a small reward for behaving badly
smusamashah
As a counter point, when I came to UK, it was super weird to see self checkout machines. Where I am from (Pakistan), I can't imagine anything like that. Although watched a video recently where in a rural area a guy left a cart of fruits on the side of road for people to buy the fruits and pay by themselves, at the end of the day cash was just little bit less than total amount.
These machines in UK felt like I was being trusted to pick items myself, and pay myself and I shouldn't break that trust.
Ironically I don't see these self checkout machines in Indian/Turkish/Kurdish etc super stores. In-fact, those stores trust there customers even less, they would ask you to leave your bags/trolleys at the door.
vidarh
You're on multiple cameras for most of the self-checkouts in the UK, with at least some both capturing your face and an overhead view that will trigger a "are you sure you scanned this" complete with replay of what looked to the system of you potentially failing to scan an item before putting it on the scales on the other end if it looks like you move something past the scanner without the scanner triggering.
The system will also typically signal for an attendant if you after a short amount of time ensures the weight on the receiving end matches the expected weight of the items scanned so far.
There's not all that much trust involved in it, and I think just being aware of the cameras will make most people who might be tempted think twice.
Of course it's possible to steal still, but it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs the shrinkage to add up to a lower cost than having more people at the tills.
swah
I think OP was afraid of making a mistake and stealing by accident.
I also don't like to use those systems if I have many hard to pack items. But at some point I guess you just remove humans completely.
guappa
They just save more money not hiring the cashier.
avidiax
Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work.
I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.
latexr
> I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.
I’d rather we had a way to change low trust societies into high trust.
sfdlkj3jk342a
After traveling for years, I often wonder how various cultures end up high or low trust. Wealth or financial inequality doesn't seem to be the main driving factor, despite seeming an obvious cause. Racial and ethnic homogeneity doesn't always explain it either.
Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor.
gadders
Colonialism is turning the UK into a low trust society?
shoobiedoo
> Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor.
Were native peoples of North America high trust between tribes before colonialism?
Eisenstein
If there are consequences to bad behavior which results in real, felt, shame, then society will self-police to whatever values it holds. However, there can be downsides; for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality.
coldtea
>for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality.
Overrated. There's close to 0% of it going on in "low trust societies" anyway. It's not like the average social media zombie in the west is anywhere near an "out of the box" thinker...
jwr
I used to buy firewood at National Forest camping sites in the US; there was a box where you dropped the money and then you grabbed a wood bundle.
Granted, this was almost 40 years ago, but this type of thing can work, even in less civilized places like the US.
gentooflux
They leave out more wood than a camper would even think to take because they only need one bundle every day or two. The sort of person who would need to steal a whole season's worth of wood is less likely to have the means to transport it all, and if they're so desperate that they'd go to the trouble then the Christian thing to do would be to let them have it.
Gillette razors on the other hand, are expensive to stock for their size, and easy to steal because of their size.
2muchcoffeeman
I’d wager that outdoorsy people who are out camping in the woods are like a “mini-Japan”. The community has their own set of rules and behaviours that would make an honour system possible. Especially 40 years ago when it would have been more of a monoculture.
bombcar
We do have a way - "high trust" enclaves inside the low trust society.
The modern examples in the USA are things like colleges, community centers, etc.
You gatekeeper the area and then everything inside is high-trust and you can get away with things like this.
You can also find it in rural areas and some very expensive islands, too.
socalgal2
In what way are USA colleges high trust. USA colleges have very high petty theft.
aomix
While driving through upstate New York on a camping trip I found a maple syrup shop run on the honor system. Leave the money in an unlocked box. It was shocking. I bought a gallon.
petcat
I had the same experience in upstate NY. So many little boutique country stores with craft and art tables outside that just had venmo signs next to the crafts. My wife bought a few items and we were pleasantly surprised to see how many public purchases were made to that venmo account. And it wasn't super cheap junk/stuff either.
ElCapitanMarkla
We have quite a few road side stalls like this around where I live in NZ, Honey, eggs, swedes are a common one. You hear of the odd theft from them every now and then but for the most part it seems to work well.
ahoka
There are shops like that in Sweden and Germany, probably many other countries.
kelipso
I wonder if this is actual high trust or that there are security cameras everywhere.
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RataNova
The real challenge is figuring out how to build even a fraction of that in lower-trust environments
deadbabe
High trust environments tend to crumble in society when you allow too much immigration. Japan’s xenophobia has worked well in this regard.
kcyb
Switzerland is a diverse society with lots of immigration and it is also a high-trust society
coldtea
The huge majority is from Germany, Italy, France, etc. A lot of it is highly vetted, professional migration.
If it adds enough of illegal immigrattion or low-grade legal one, it wont be a high trust society anymore.
mrweasel
That probably has more to do with who immigrates to Switzerland. I don't now the numbers, but people who immigrate to Switzerland is probably fairly well educated and generally pretty well of.
Denmark is still a fairly high-trust society, not to the level of Switzerland or Japan. We're seeing certain items in supermarkets being locked away or chipped to prevent theft. Now that's not just because of immigrants, Danes steal from the supermarket as well, because prices on many items are increasing rapidly.
deadbabe
Switzerland is so small, basically a city.
Havoc
Also depends on type though. I’ve seen honesty boxes work out fine where the immigration consists mostly of professionals.
vasco
And a 99.8% conviction rate.
HPsquared
Only 33 prisoners per 100k population (cf 541 in the US). Whatever they're doing, it's working.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
nazgob
It's a different system, they don't go to court without iron-clad case. Japan does not have a large prison population.
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portaouflop
You can turn it into a high trust society. The mechanisms and procedures to achieve that are fairly well known.
RataNova
This is one of those "only in Japan" stories that somehow manages to be both heartwarming and surreal
ballenf
I'm blown away by a fridge costing <$100, used or not. Did I misunderstand the prices?
vidarh
A quick search shows I can get fridges used for less than that in London, though mostly small ones. I guess to a lot of people, when they replace goods like that, the hassle of selling it outweighs the perceived return
gregjw
No, you didn't. Says 10,000 yen, so about 70USD at the moment.
CorbenDallas
in some countries honour is to steal from "rich", so not universal :)
Towaway69
(2021)
w15v
[dead]
whatsupdog
[flagged]
What the article doesn't mention but the store's website https://tot-go12.com/ does is that you need to pass through facial recognition to enter the store and there are multiple cameras tracking whether you try to leave without paying. (Maybe like Amazon Checkout where there's humans continuously monitoring the video feed.)
"High trust society" or not, you need some minimum level of security to avoid becoming a honeypot for all the less-trustworthy individuals that exist in any society. Maybe the highest trust here is in the police actually showing up and doing something about it when they report a theft.