Back in the day, nobody returned their shopping carts. The norm of returning carts emerged in the 1980s.
Today, if there’s ample space in the parking lot, I leave it near my car.
*********
That’s a total misconception. Returning shopping carts has always been a thing.
I guess I’m older than you, and I think you’re wrong about that. Cart corrals emerged in the 80s.
Not really. It used to be a standard thing for a person to take your cart out to your car for you and help you load your groceries. Then some accountant figured out if you made customers take out their own groceries you didn't have to spend money on employees to do it. Then there was nobody to bring the carts in so they had to have employees designated to go out and gather up the carts from all over the parking lot. Then some accountant figured out they could at least concentrate the carts in one area by building cart corrals and then making customers feel like they were helping reduce cost by returning their carts to cart corrals. Once people caught on to that the changed the tactic to it was kind to return the cart to the cart corral. It became a moral issue. Bottom line is this is and was always a way for stores to save money by reducing employees they had to hire.