It’s a ritual sacrifice, so the important thing is that the person parted with the money. It’s not that important if the situation gets it, or who gets it.
Spendrill@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Whoever owns the fountains owns the money.
If someone throws money into a fountain and then wishes then that in itself is a complete transaction with whichever supernatural entity is being bargained with.
I am assuming that any entity which is powerful enough to grant wishes is also powerful enough to hang onto the money if that should be its wish.
Alternatively it’s a quaint custom that people engage in as a form of custom and the pleasure comes with a link to the tradition.
The periodic clearing out of the fountains is both necessary maintenance and a form of income that pays for said maintenance. No one is really harmed by this.
Majorllama@lemmy.world 3 days ago
To add to this as someone who has a friend that owns a publicly accessible fountain that needs the coins cleaned out of frequently.
He doesn’t care if a kid steals a handful of coins once in awhile. Most parents will tell their kids to put the coins back so that the person’s wishes still come true, but he doesn’t like when adults try and take coins out for any reason.
The coins are a not insignificant amount of money that helps pay for the cost of running the fountain and having adults fish out all the quarters does make the value of the coins significantly worse when it comes to cleaning time. Granted most people toss pennies to begin with.
Basically don’t dig out coins from a fountain unless you have permission from the owner of said fountain.