
Please don't pay to use a pay toilet - jeroenheijmans
https://www.stallman.org/pay-toilets.html
======
nessus42
When I was in Paris, circa 2000, I came across some interesting pay toilets
that were kind of like the Cadillacs of porto-potties. They were located on
streets in nice shopping areas. You'd pay for the door to open. They had
running water, but no water or fluid in the toilet bowl. Instead, the toilet
was more like a concave shelf for peeing and/or pooping on.

When you were done, you'd leave through the door, which would lock behind you,
and then for a minute or two, it would go through a self-cleaning cycle,
making itself (putatively) spotless for the next customer.

They even had the same idea scaled up to entire motels. Near Lyon, I needed to
catch 3 hours of zzz's before going to the airport. I found a motel called
"Formule 1". It was a seemingly automated motel. You hardly ever saw an
employee.

To park your car, you slid your credit card through a card reader at the
parking lot gate, and it charged you $20 or so. You would be given a receipt
with a combination number for the front door and for your room.

The bathrooms were down the hall from your room. They were somewhat similar to
the fancy porto-poties. Though they also had showers in them. The shower was
on a timer. When you left the bathroom, the door would lock behind you for a
while, as it would go through its cleaning cycle.

France is strange!

~~~
kahirsch
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette)

~~~
nessus42
Yes, that's exactly what I saw and used!

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castratikron
Most Americans under a certain age have probably never heard of a pay toilet:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America)

~~~
jdavis703
Aren't these quite common in Europe still? I'm 25 and American and have paid
for toilets several times (I even remember having to pay at a McDonalds in
Washington, DC back when I was really little).

~~~
brianwawok
Common in Mexico too. Guy standing outside with TP collects the money. Well
worth it over Mexican free toilets.

------
z02d
In my area of Germany, we have some places where public toilets are not
available as desired. Instead of build new ones, which are expensive, the
local responsible persons found a nice solution. They pay bars to let their
toilets used. Bars and restaurants, who join this initiative get a sticker on
the front door. So you don't have to sneak inside to use the restrooms.

------
zelos
Apparently they can make a decent amount of money, roughly 50% profit:

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-
statio...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-station-
toilets-make-millions-every-year)

~~~
bshimmin
It's quite interesting to see from those numbers how relatively infrequently
the pay toilets are actually used: London Victoria has brought in £2,300,511
over 3 years; a quick Google suggests it has a footfall of ~137 million people
a year [1]; at 30p a pop, that's really not a lot of people using those
toilets as a proportion of the total number of people going through that
station.

And, in fact, this tallies with my own experience: I've been through
Paddington and Liverpool Street hundreds of times and have only used the
toilets on a handful of occasions, usually with moderate cursing at having to
find the appropriate change. And they never seem particularly busy.

[1]
[https://www.networkrail.co.uk/FootfallBreakdownForEachStatio...](https://www.networkrail.co.uk/FootfallBreakdownForEachStation.pdf)
(not sure of the year)

~~~
stuaxo
The toilets in Victoria are some of the foulest smelling around.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
And they're also 50p now.

------
gwern
Having run into many public toilets and restrooms which were unusable because
they were covered in feces or urine or had crazy homeless people in them
harassing people (most recently, in December in Oxford, whose homeless are
even worse than SF's, if you can believe it), I often wish I _could_ pay to
use a pay toilet. People value more what they pay for, it keeps out people who
only want to trash them, and it can pay for amenities like automated washing.

~~~
maxander
> Having run into many public toilets and restrooms which were unusable
> because they were covered in feces or urine or had crazy homeless people in
> them harassing people [...]

As a matter of course- because really the issue of pay toilets is just one
small protuberance from the much larger social problem, which is that
currently society doesn't provide remotely appropriate care for a large
segment of the mentally ill. That a tourist taking a piss in Manhattan entails
thorny socioethical issues is surprising yet direct result.

The same problem repeats itself all over urban life. It's why the bus stop
shelter doesn't keep you dry, why park benches are uncomfortable, and why
you're likely to hear an ambulance siren at least once in an ordinary day.
Someday society will realize that the underlying problem isn't a necessary
truth, and everything will suddenly seem so much _nicer_.

------
teilo
When traveling in Germany, pay toilets were one of the things I liked. I don't
like going into some place of business to use their toilet without buying
something. It was actually cheaper for me to use a pay toilet. Furthermore,
they were easy to find, clean, and well maintained.

~~~
LeanderK
am german, i also don't mind using a pay toilet, because they are mostly
super, super clean. Sometimes they are really expensive (it's like parking
space), but mostly they take a few cents and you really get something in
return.

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__derek__
This framing is ridiculous. The water, power, toilet paper, fixtures, etc.,
cost money to provide. Someone is always paying for the toilet.

~~~
imgabe
Cleaning up excrement from public areas also costs money and in the meantime
makes it less pleasant for everyone. You can pay for one or the other.

~~~
__derek__
Then the post should advocate building publicly-funded toilets. All I see is
the suggestion that we shift this cost off to someone else. Maybe the "great
lengths" implies paying for some good or service in order to use a business's
toilet, but that would undermine the premise.

------
koube
As with any ideology, I don't think this is one size fits all. The alternative
to a paid bathroom isn't free bathrooms, it's no bathrooms. I think anyone
who's lived a city that smells like piss, or anyone who's needed to take a
piss when everything was closed, would love there to be paid bathrooms.

------
jacalata
I am very curious to know if the alternative toilets he uses are equally
accessible to the poorer people he is advocating on behalf of. I know I can
walk into any good hotel and be taken for a guest and probably directed to a
bathroom, and I know that many others, especially homeless people, couldn't do
so.

------
burntrelish1273
In NL and BE, there are often public urinals during festivals like this:

[http://toilet-guru.com/pictures/amsterdam-street-
dscf3952-tn...](http://toilet-guru.com/pictures/amsterdam-street-
dscf3952-tn.jpg)

But generally, in Europe, there are about zero free public toilets and just a
few public pay ones.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
You can use the toilets of any publicly available official building (city hall
for instance, or a university).

------
ythn
Pay toilets are super annoying, and very common in Europe. Still, even if you
are in NYC, it's hard to find a "free" toilet. Most of the time you have to go
to a restaurant, buy something, and then you'll get the key.

~~~
Kadin
That's exactly the tradeoff. Pay toilets are pretty nice when your alternative
is either having to patronize a business purely in order to use their
bathroom, or drop trou outside somewhere.

Sure, in theory there could be wonderful tax-funded public toilets everywhere,
but it's a hard sell to taxpayers: most of the time, locals aren't the ones
getting caught in need of a bathroom. (I mean, how many times in your typical
day do you use a public toilet? Probably not often; it's a thing you use when
traveling, or as a tourist in a different city.) And thus they're
understandably reluctant to divert tax money to pay for them, and they get to
make the call.

------
CarolineW
It's probably too late for this comment to be seen and make a difference - it
will sink to the bottom of the thread without a trace, but in case anyone is
interested in reading more HN comments about this, it has been submitted again
and is being discussed over here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343542)

------
jdlyga
I'm in the US, and I haven't seen a pay toilet since I was a little kid in the
late 80s. What I have seen a lot especially in New York City are bathrooms for
customers only. There are large areas of the city where public bathrooms are
very scarce, and the only available ones are inside of businesses that require
you to buy something before you can use the bathroom.

------
iLemming
Mr. Stallman, I'd like to invite you to San Francisco for an adventurous quest
in search of paid toilets, or any kind of restrooms in this case - paid our
whatever. You can even wear flowers in your hair.

------
jeffehobbs
Honestly, he's right.

------
chanz
Maybe a good solution for those who can't pay is to make them pay by time. As
example I don't want to wait so I pay as example one euro/dollar. Someone who
can't pay, just waits 3-5 minutes or pushes a button 50 times. Sounds stupid,
but this could work in my opinion. Anyone who has enough money can afford to
pay, but is less likely to mess with a button or wait 5 mins. A homeless on
the other hand, could at least wait instead of being denied the access at all.

~~~
echlebek
What happens when another person wants to use the toilet? Two possible
scenarios.

A) They have to wait 5 minutes (pointlessly) plus the duration of the next
person's stay. B) They pay to bump the person behind in the queue.

Both scenarios are bad. In A, the toilet is not being used to its effective
capacity. In B, paying customers can prevent non-paying customers from ever
getting to use the toilet.

Toilets should be provided for free to customers by private businesses, and to
the general public by cities. The alternative is alleys reeking of urine and
feces. Toilets: a worthwhile public expense.

~~~
chanz
If there is just one toilet, then yes those scenarios are the worst case to
the idea.

So if a toilet needs a queue, then the first in-first out method should be
used to prevent someone from bumping the queue and prevent over excessive wait
times for someone who can't pay.

Also if they want to pay for the toilet, they can always pay for who is in
front of them.

To enforce such rules is always a problem, but so are all rules in our
society.

------
gdulli
I don't know where pay toilets even exist, or if they're public or private.
Wouldn't the alternatives be the absence of a given toilet or a tax-funded
toilet? If the latter, the poor could pay disproportionately due to various
tax dodging avenues available only to the rich.

------
unabridged
Instead of pay toilets, how about a thumbprint or face scan. Take pics of the
bathroom before and after every use. Everyone can use the toilet for free,
until they are caught abusing it. Then they can pay a fine or take a personal
responsibility class to get the privilege back.

~~~
CommanderData
Privacy implications? I.e. Taking a dump becomes another way to disclose your
location and whereabouts. Kinda funny.

~~~
unabridged
If privacy is an issue, maybe some kind of token or card disconnected to your
identity to get in.

But I think the face pictures could be used in some kind of public shaming for
people to treat the bathroom nicely.

~~~
robotresearcher
> maybe some kind of token or card disconnected to your identity to get in.

Perhaps a circular metal disk would work well.

------
anonyymus
If you don't care about privacy, then world is your toilet

.. or when you don't have the change for a paid toilet and you really really
have to do it

------
splawn
Don't get him started on free vs open source toilets. =P

I had no idea this was even a thing. Doesn't seem justifiable to me, it just
seems cruel.

~~~
otachack
It's a thing even in places where it isn't explicit, such as in New York City.
Many businesses reject people that just come to use a bathroom which will make
desperate patrons pay for an item in order to gain access.

------
esaym
Here I sit broken hearted....

------
wonder_er
Yikes. Who pays for the free toilets, then?

I love pay toilets. Most of them are kept clean, and I don't consider finding
a clean, available toilet to be a right.

I've paid for others to use toilets, and I'll keep doing so.

"Don't let people pay for things because poor people might not be able to
afford it" is offensive to "poor" people.

Oh well. If it makes him feel like he's championing a cause...

~~~
hprotagonist
>I don't consider finding a clean, available toilet to be a right.

Posit a reason why it is socially unacceptable for people to just crap in the
street, then.

~~~
wonder_er
to clarify, I don't think people should be shitting in the street, but i
instinctually bristle against a "right" that requires someone else to do
something in service of the person who has that right.

(This is the difference between a negative and positive right)

If someone has a right to clean, available toilets at all times, then someone
must pay to provide those services. I'm happy to _donate_ to the cause, but I
don't think the force of law should compel me to part with my money to buy
someone a toilet.

Especially because PAY toilets solve this problem so elegantly.

For example, imagine a pay toilet that, when you pay, you have the option to
buy access to the same toilet to someone who is unable to pay themselves. I'd
do it. This is basically the same idea as the "leave a little, take a little"
coin jar many shop vendors have.

If you need 20 cents for some reason, take it. I usually just dump my extra
change into that jar. I would do the same in a pay toilet, and often have.

