We were making poutine as part of our event - many potatoes leftover! We're also a makerspace with 9 different diciplines, so finding weird stuff around is commonplace. I totally get the "stealing from big corporations" mentality, but we're a non-profit that's only just getting off the ground. And the person in question is a new entrepreneur. I guess different people see the line at different places, because i'm convinced she would not have stolen from an individual. But stealing from the makerspace, is just stealing from the other 100 members - some of them struggling artists and entrepreneurs just like her... But maybe at some point the link is too far removed to notice? Or drunken selfishness wins over?
I can speak only for myself, but one of the things that keeps me out of makerspaces is "makers." The whole "I make tacky shit on tools I can't afford so I can dump it on Etsy to justify my hobbies" thing is a bridge too far for me, but I'm a rich asshole who can do obnoxious things like buy $600 casting machines. If I were a "new entrepreneur" an ownership stake in the facility I was forced to use might make me hate myself less. And that ownership stake could, theoretically, come from "potato access."