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There's literally an episode of DS9 where this is used as a gag on the ferrengi home-world to show the horrors of out of control capitalism.
Two slips?! I'll take the stairs!
Such a badly written title.
I read that thinking, yeah it sounds dystopian but who has coins, and found out:
Should have called it "the rise and fall of pay-to-use elevators".
That's not badly written, that's out right lying.
Thanks for saving me to “wtf” click.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
when i watched ds6 all the way through for the first time, there was an episode on the ferengi homeworld that immediately reminded me of this story because quark has to put a quarter in a chair to sit on it.
"family business" definitely sets the bar
http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/469.htm
QUARK: Welcome to our home.
(Brunt hands over a slip of latinum, which Quark finally remembers to put in a money box by the door.).
QUARK: Please place your imprint on the legal waivers and deposit your admission fee in the box by the door. Remember, my house is my house.
BRUNT: As are its contents.
A useful side effect: people started walking more.
The reason that a lot of European cities are about four or five stories is because prior to the elevator, that's about how high people were willing to climb.
If you live on the tenth floor of a building, say, an elevator is really more than an optional luxury.
China is like this, any building with more than 6 floors is required by law to have an elevator.
4 in Germany. And I'm not complaining 😁
Next up: Slide your card to use the shitter.
People already miss the toilet when it's free.
Coin-operated elevators sounds like a libertarian paradise!
Coin-operated elevators sounds like a libertarian paradise!
Coin-operated elevators are a libertarian hellscape!
A single paid fare on the elevator will take the passenger to any floor. While their are fixed costs on the elevator car and the initial installation, the rest of the costs incurred on elevator operation are variable based upon how many floors the elevator traverses before dispensing its passenger. The same coin that takes a passenger to the very top floor of a 25 story building will also only take a passenger one floor up. Where are the variable fare rates so that each passenger only pays for what they are consuming, and nothing more?!
Because much higher costs are incurred from the top floor passenger than the one-floor-up passenger, it means the one-floor-up passenger is subsidizing the top floor passenger. The top floor passenger is a parasite sucking value out of the system without returning an equal profit margin as the one-floor-up passenger. What we've got here is socialism!
/s
you aren't thinking of the little guy, the one that takes advantage of the coin operated elevator to lift multi ton barrels and drop them to generate slightly more electricity than they could have gotten from the electric company
Wait till you try the credit card machines on the toilets.
I’ll piss on the floor.
Fuck it, I’ll piss on the card reader
Careful, urine is conductive.
If you do that urine trouble!
Next: coin operated songbirds
Really? Because if it's installed by the apartment owners association, it's just another way to collect money for repairs instead of a monthly fee
*in addition to a monthly fee
Yes, you obviously still have a monthly fee for the maintenance fund of the roof, walls, plumbing, everything that every apartment uses. But since not everyone uses the elevator, is it truly fair that everyone has to pay for that?
No. You will just pay the fee that you paid before. Plus the elevator fee
And yes, it is fair. It's part of being in a social community
No. You will just pay the fee that you paid before. Plus the elevator fee
Then that means that when there's an emergency, there's a bigger fund available. Still a good thing considering how hard it is to get people to increase maintenance fees in some apartment buildings. They'll let the place fall apart before considering an increase.
Yes. You might not need it today, but you might tomorrow.
Then you pay tomorrow?
Obviously the people in those buildings voted for this system, otherwise it wouldn't have been done. I suspect it means that maybe 10-20% of people were lazy and used the elevator and everyone else was tired of paying for it.
No. They are not.
Lots of Americans have watched the Wallace and Gromit shows and movies.
Probably, fewer of them understand that the robotic moon-dwelling antagonist in A Grand Day Out was a coin-operated heating and cooking appliance, modeled after the sort that actually existed and operated in post-War Britain.
I'm not in favor of coin-op elevators. But there are precedents. The ownership class will nickel-and-dime you to death if they think they can. They view the rest of us as a resource to be strip-mined.
Not exactly a one for one comparison. What you're describing is just a gas meter. I've lived in houses that had them. It's a way of paying your gas bill on a pay-as-you-go basis instead of monthly. Annoying, but not exactly a great example of the kind of rent seeking you're pointing at, since it's just a method of paying for a thing that everyone would expect to pay for (under any form of capitalism, at any rate).
Coin operated meters are usually more expensive per watt than billed ones. They normally work with a card that you can charge up at the local corner shop these days.
Sure, but the point is that they're not a good example of "rent seeking", which is specifically where companies require things that used to be included in a fixed cost and break it out as a separate payment, at no benefit to the user.
Reminds me of that scene in Ubik where Joe Chip has to put a coin in his front door for it to open lol
The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please."
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you."
"I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt."
...he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
"You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug.
So are hammer attacks
Coins are becoming less common
Well I've heard of a Coin operated boy but not an elevator.
That unlocked a song I haven't heard in years, I miss 2000s edm when it was just fun and not $700 festivals.
I would be happy to take the stairs, so long as that thing was smashed off the wall.
There is a bin store in my town and it pulls in about 400 or more customers a day. At least on $12 and $1 days. With so many people wanting to use his toilet and his water tax increasing, the owner installed a pay toilet. Of course people were taping over the lock so he stationed a security guy by the door. Now customers are going out behind his building to do their business and you can smell it as you drive up. Who carries change? I don't even shop at stores that require me to insert a quarter for a cart. Anyway, a rounded backward key works. My sister now carries spare keys with her and I told her she could just as easily carry quarters but it is the principle. I just don't shop there, on principle. I also don't shop at membership clubs. If BJ's, Sams or Costco wants my money, they have to pay me to come in. Otherwise, it is bin stores and farmers markets for me.
Bin store is like convince store? Or like a junk shop?