But the US still seems to have some remnants of a high trust society, which has been only a temporary thing in many places, if at all.
Not having such a society adds frictions in all kind of interactions. In the end, that means cost. I can understand why people and company try to shift that cost when it comes up in areas where it wasn't present beforehand.
In the US if a package is not left at the door you either have to wait an unknowable amount of time for another attempt, or you'd have to go to a facility to pick it up.
It's difficult to figure out exactly where the facilities are and you're not guaranteed the package won't still be on the original truck or on a new one. The facilities may only be open during the day, while you're at work.
Additionally, it's common that no delivery attempt is made at all -- the delivery driver will walk up to the door with a "we missed you we'll try again someday" slip already filled out and won't even knock.
The main reason we are cool with deliveries being left on the porch isn't that we trust our neighbors, it's that the alternative is so much worse.
Even if you don't fully trust them, it's still just a better way to live - if you have the luxury. I left money - change from a grocery run on my coffee table, and then had some friends over. It's not the remnants of a high trust society that let me not worry about that money being out, but financial privilege. That the < $100 wasn't worth my time to worry about. If one of my visitors took some/any/all of it, I wouldn't have gone hungry. I might not even have noticed. Just thought, huh, that's weird, and gone about my day. Others I know don't have that luxury, and would go hungry if it was their money that had gone missing. They're much less trusting, because they have to be.
If the latest shipment of crap from Amazon/Temu went missing. Annoying, but you'd just tell them the package got stolen and get a replacement sent out.
I live in US suburb and I also trust my neighbors. It's unlikely that my actual neighbors are stealing packages.
The problem is that there are people who drives through residential areas looking for packages to steal, cars to break into, etc. and that occurs quite frequently, as caught on our security camera.
It doesn't take many motorized perpetrators to lower the overall confidence in how secure it is to leave packages outside, given how much range the porch pirates can cover in a single afternoon.
I trust my neighbors and I have a slew of high res cameras monitoring the area. When there is theft my neighbors come to my house (located at the main entrance to the area), and I get them the relevant footage if I can find it. It’s only happened a few times but I think it helps build community trust.
I didn't say high trust is gone (although it certainly is in some areas), I said the reason we are cool with packages being left on our porches is the alternative is inconvenient.
Inconvenient and for much of the country, unnecessary. Even when living in the same county as Detroit (but not in the city limits), porch pirates weren't an issue.
> In the US if a package is not left at the door you either have to wait an unknowable amount of time for another attempt
It's not unknowable; FedEx and UPS at least will reattempt delivery every day for a certain number of days before giving up. At least that's the case in urban and suburban environments. Maybe you live somewhere rural where their policy is less clear?
> It's difficult to figure out exactly where the facilities are
No it's not. The tag they leave behind will often tell you, or you can enter the tracking number online and it'll tell you there. And usually it's the same place every time, so once you figure it out, you're good for future packages.
> and you're not guaranteed the package won't still be on the original truck or on a new one
This is the annoying thing. It's never clear when the package will actually get back to the facility (after they failed to deliver it to you), so you don't actually know if it'll be there when you show up. Many many years ago it was a simple matter of giving them a call, but nowadays you end up in customer support / phone menu hell, and it's incredibly difficult to talk to someone who is actually physically present at the facility.
> The main reason we are cool with deliveries being left on the porch isn't that we trust our neighbors, it's that the alternative is so much worse.
I'm absolutely not cool with this. I trust my neighbors just fine, but I don't trust all the random people who might be walking around, specifically looking for packages to steal.
I'd much rather have to drive over to a facility to pick up the package, or just wait until the next day for another delivery attempt, but most delivery drivers don't give me that choice.
If the package does get stolen (incredibly likely, if it's left outside), I'll usually have to wait several days for the merchant to ship a new one (because they figure it's possible it wasn't stolen, and want me to wait and see if it still gets delivered in a day or two). And then I have to wait for another shipping-time cycle.
> FedEx and UPS at least will reattempt delivery every day for a certain number of days before giving up
They claim this, but my experience is that it's not true. VERY VERY often, it will be multiple days or up to a week before they attempt again. Sometimes they never attempt again, and a week or more later I get the notification that it's available to pick up at their depot. It's certainly not consistent enough to rely on.
Here in Sweden, you can agree to let the delivery company just leave the package by the front door, but it's only common for low value things. Most things are delivered to your nearest post office counter (usually in your closest supermarket) and recently, to a locked postbox nearby which you unlock online with their app.
Here in Berlin Germany, packages are given to whichever neighbor in your apartment building happens to reply to the buzzer fastest, typically the ground floor ones. (Elevators are also uncommon.)
I'm friends with all my neighbors but I find this practice completely bizarre.
Here in Buxtehofen, Bavaria, packages are left dangling from trees with a sign saying "I've hung up your rolex, so it wont be dragged of by boars while you're on vacation".
And when you're back from hiking the Alps your neighbor will have build a shed around it to protect it from the rain and moved in 10 of his pigs to keep it warm.
Unless of course your delivery guy tied your package to a special tree called Maibaum by mistake. Then you'll find a sign telling you that it has been redirected to one of the 5 villages called Kirchberg in your area.
In Belgium the mail carrier is supposed to ring your doorbell and wait x time for you to open it and deliver the package to you.
But instead they just put a piece of paper in your mailbox that says 'you weren't home, we'll come back tomorrow'. Next day same thing. Only then can you go and pick it up at the post office.
Oh and there are many stories of people seeing the mail carrier defaulting to the piece of paper and not even knocking because of time pressure.
If the item fits in your mailbox (letter size), they do that.
If not, they knock, and leave a "we missed you" note if the package is insured. Or leave it on the doorstep if not.
If you get the note, you have to go the post office in two days, during normal office hours (9-5ish), or Saturday morning (9-12). If you don't make in a few days, they return to sender.
But this is only for USPS. If the package is FedEx/UPS/courier, it's the wild west. Sometimes they leave it. Sometimes they leave a note. Frequently they claim they attempted delivery but didn't. And if they miss you a few times, you have to pick it up at the distribution warehouse which could be a 30 min drive away. This is the worst - even for items you know need a signature, there's no guarantee they'll deliver - we ran into this a few months ago with some jewelry - delivery was schedule Monday 12-5pm, we waited in the living room (right by the door) and nobody came. Their system showed a failed attempt (courier lied). Repeated Tues. Called courier warehouse, they asked if we had doorbell video proving the delivery attempt was never made (WTactualFuck). Repeat on Wed. Item was returned to sender. We called sender, asked them to use USPS because private shipping can be a disaster. USPS is often a day slower, but it's fairly reliable.
Some areas have problems with package theft. Fortunately mine isn't one of them, so I'm ok with packages being left.
This is how it works with the French Post, with the exception that they never come back. Other providers do their own thing, and are more or less scrupulous. Some won't even bother to come over, they'll just say nobody was home and won't even leave a slip.
Anecdotally, in France, the parcels "delivered by Amazon" have hands down the best service. They're the only ones who've ever actually delivered the parcel to my door (I live in an apartment). If they can't leave the parcel in the mailbox, they'll call me up and ask what to do, usually offering to come back some other day if I'm not at home.
My case, they're often either not delivered at all (returned to sender or kept at a random Filiale) or if they are delivered it's to a different building that DHL guessed might have been mine.
This is one of several reasons I no longer buy anything from Amazon. Not even if it's the cheapest source. Even if it gets to a Filiale, those are further than most of the shops that would sell similar items.
Amazon doesn't usually ship with DHL in France. But there's another comically bad company, not sure how they're still in business.
It's rare the Amazon sends something via them, but whenever they do, I expect to not get the package. And when I don't, I just call up Amazon support and complain about them and make it a point to mention I often have issues with that specific company. They usually offer to cancel the shipment and reship overnight. Don't know if they can actually control it or if it's coincidence, but all reshipments have been via Amazon.
> But the US still seems to have some remnants of a high trust society
It varies greatly depending on where you live. My sister lives in suburban Maryland, and leaving a package outside on a porch is just no big deal. The probability that it gets stolen is actually ridiculously low. In this case the high trust is completely warranted.
I live in San Francisco, and if a delivery person ever leaves a package outside, it's always a scramble to either get there to take it in, or find a neighbor who can do it for you. (I live in a 4-unit condo building, so we all try to look out for each other's packages when this happens.) It's just bizarre to me that delivery people aren't specifically instructed to never leave packages outside here. I suspect they may be, but they're overworked and don't want to have to add yet another package to their delivery schedule for the next day. And/or they may be evaluated on number of completed deliveries, no idea.
(On the flip side, there are some neighborhoods in SF where it's ok for a package to sit on a doorstep for a while. Not many, but... they exist.)
But the US still seems to have some remnants of a high trust society, which has been only a temporary thing in many places, if at all.
Not having such a society adds frictions in all kind of interactions. In the end, that means cost. I can understand why people and company try to shift that cost when it comes up in areas where it wasn't present beforehand.