A "flood the zone" strategy similar to this works well for cheap items that continually vanish, such as pens, socks, charging cables, etc.
I have also been quite generous with friends, trying to teach them the way. However, I've found that I'm just enabling bad habits in careless people, and before you know it I've run out of anything popular. So now, I still flood my zone, in secret, and let others fend for themselves.