First of all, unless one happens to be an Orthodox Jew, I don’t think it makes much sense to analyze the morality of something based on Talmudic principles. Many of those principles are interpretations of portions of the Torah which have no correspondence to the natural law, and it is the natural law that is in question here.
Secondly, the example of the woman assumes many things about her thoughts when entering the store which, to my mind, simply appear to be rash judgment. Judging people rashly is also sinful and wrong.
Thirdly, the main problem with calling this theft is that (a) it involves no object or good and (b) it assumes something is being taken against the reasonable will of the rightful owner.
(a) To say that a store’s time is being taken up is not the same thing as saying that money is being stolen, because it is not obvious that money would have been earned during the time it took to show a particular customer various goods. It is possible that sales may have been delayed during that time. It is not obvious that sales have been made impossible, as if someone wanted to purchase an item but left in a huff because things were taking too long. So what, precisely, is being stolen? The most that can be said is that information was taken from a salesperson against their will because they assumed the customer intended to make a purchase. Excuse me, but that is not a valid assumption. Salespeople don’t regularly assume that every single person walking into a store and speaking to them is going to purchase the item they ask about.
(b) Since it isn’t valid to assume that every customer who asks about a product is intending to purchase it, nothing is being taken against the will of the rightful owner. The salesperson willingly cooperates with the questions being asked because they know there’s a chance they might make a sale. This is because there is the potential to make a sale, not because it is something inevitable. In fact, even if a good salesperson thought someone did not intend on making a purchase, they may very well invest their time anyway, since there’s the potential to change people’s minds and to offer them good deals.
Having said all of this, I do think the practice described is disrespectful and slightly unfair and, yes, dishonest. I also think the video did a great job of making some excellent points. But I could not describe any of this as theft.
