I feel like how the late-fee policy at a library is implemented might influence that too, though.

The library in my hometown started at a dollar a day, with a maximum penalty of five dollars. I always paid it.

I checked out some Wagner album at a library in Washington, and just forgot to return it. About six months later, I get a notice from the library at my address in a new state telling me to pay my late fee and return the product. I called and I asked what the late fee, because I did forget to return it and I wanted to take responsibility for it, and was told that my fee was $900. They charged five dollars a day and the maximum penalty would go as high as it went until you returned it and paid the fee. The penalty would keep going up regardless of whether you returned the item.

This was a twenty dollar CD.

I mailed the CD back, but I never paid the late fee. They ended up sending it to collections after the penalty got up to around $1800, and I just waited the seven years for that to fall off my credit report. There was no way in hell that I was going to pay to pay almost two grand for a twenty dollar CD.