exactly this. I used to work retail, anyone who has knows how problematic stealing is for the store itself and how the dumbest shit gets stolen. Thieves don't steal necessities like toiletries or pet food or rice, they steal shit like chimichangas, beer, and headphones. If they steal necessities like Tide detergent or baby formula, it's because they're reselling that shit or using it as some kind of currency. Shoplifters are very rarely the desperate impoverished person or chaotic good Robin Hood type. They're normally total assholes. I do have sympathy for the rare person actually trying to feed their families, but again- these folks are very rare.

Just because a store is owned by a billion-dollar corporation doesn't mean that constant theft can't make a store insolvent which jeopardizes the jobs of several people and risks the community losing a source of affordable, necessary goods. Businesses aren't fucking charities and it's insane to assume that they'll use whatever profits from one store to prop another store up when it's hemorrhaging money. Yes, big corporations are fucking evil but shutting down stores because of rampant, often organized theft isn't the reason.

some people need to wake the fuck up when it comes to retail theft and look up the data. There's been a rise over the last decade or so in retail theft, half of all retail losses are because of organized crime. And because progressives are so stupid and terminally online that they actively promote shoplifting because it "hurts corporations." It doesn't hurt corporations one bit. It hurts communities.