this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 5 hours ago

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.

[–] yoyoyopo5@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Next up: Slide your card to use the shitter.

[–] dbtng@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 hours ago

I would be happy to take the stairs, so long as that thing was smashed off the wall.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 19 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department

[–] anewfox@lemmy.zip 5 points 10 hours ago

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.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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).

[–] zwerg@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

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.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 19 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Coin-operated elevators sounds like a libertarian paradise!

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] bajabound@lemmy.world 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Wait till you try the credit card machines on the toilets.

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 8 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I’ll piss on the floor.

Fuck it, I’ll piss on the card reader

[–] riskable@programming.dev 1 points 7 hours ago

If you do that urine trouble!

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 15 hours ago

Careful, urine is conductive.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 17 hours ago

Next: coin operated songbirds

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 20 points 18 hours ago

No. They are not.

[–] ArkanianOffshoot@feddit.org 15 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

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.

[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 14 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

So are hammer attacks

[–] bananabread@lemmy.zip 12 points 18 hours ago

Coins are becoming less common

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Well I've heard of a Coin operated boy but not an elevator.

[–] SillyDude@lemmy.zip 2 points 16 hours ago

That unlocked a song I haven't heard in years, I miss 2000s edm when it was just fun and not $700 festivals.

https://youtu.be/IHqSUHN69-0

[–] LemUser@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] gothic_lemons@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Bin store is like convince store? Or like a junk shop?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I like people in gym clothes who get off on the 2nd or third floor.

[–] Nastybutler@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

Maybe it's leg day and they're spent