4 ms·

libraries and movie rentals had late fees because they can't rent out the same movie or book while you have it. Those require a different argument than mortage

• selimthegrim 3y ago
  One wonders whether this person thinks e-books or audiobooks should have late fees
• gruez 3y ago
  But why charge late fees rather than charging you for additional rental time?
  • bombcar 3y ago
    That is what Redbox does now, you get one night and if you hold it longer they charge for more days, until they’ve charged you the full DVD price then you can keep it. Libraries have most gotten rid of late fees because it didn’t do anything useful; only scared people off. (They still charge replacement cost of the book if you never return it.)
  • valleyer 3y ago
    Arguably: because if customers keep movies past the due date, then it's not just that the video store can't rent it to someone else. It's also that the reputation of the video store will worsen, since other customers will find that they tend not to have good movies in stock. (In other words, it's worth more to the video store to rent a film to two customers for one day each than to one customer for two days.) So, the per-day opportunity cost to the video store goes up as each day passes. Sure, they could just charge the customer an increasing per-day overdue rate. But that's basically the same thing as having late fees anyway.