The thing is, once you add a sticker, it becomes visually distinguishable. If you're the teacher handing out thirty of the same exact thing for a workshop, an incoming class, whatever. We give out a notebook/laptop/piece of paper to each student. The first instruction is to write your name at the top of the page/book or otherwise somehow make it distinguishable. Because the problem is inevitably someone will lose theirs and the teacher just has this notebook with no name on it.
For laptops at work, everyone has the same IT issued laptop. You go to anything where there's more than one of you, go for a coffee break that runs long, the class does a standing exercise, whatever, the point is the laptops get mixed up. Now there are 29 indistinguishably the same laptop, and one with a sticker on it.
Guess who's getting their laptop back first?
