5 ms·

Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

114 points by himlion 10y ago

DiabloD3 10y ago
Where in the fuck are there pay toilets? Is this a foreign thing?
- Mic92 10y ago
  Germany
  - skbohra123 10y ago
    India too, at many places.
    - progval 10y ago
      I sometimes see pay toilets in France too
      - doall 10y ago
        In Thailand too
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    Also in Hungary. Free toilets are not common, only in government buildings, like schools, museums, government agency offices. Usually paid toilets are cheap (.5-1 €) and clean. Free toilets are not always so clean.
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      Cheap? 0,5 Euro is not cheap.
      - kodfodrasz 10y ago
        I'm not sure where do you live. It is cheap even by Hungarian standards, where average wages are around 800 euros. You must see that public toilets are seldom used by the individual, usually one can serve such needs at home, at school, at work or at a restaurant, where it is usually free (for guests at restaurants). When one is in the (usually unexpected) need, then prefers cleanliness to freeness.
- ekns 10y ago
  Random examples from recent experience: Some exist in Finland (at least in Helsinki). Also saw one recently in a train station in Belgium, and IIRC a train station in the Netherlands. Also in the North of Argentina near some bus station, where you would pay directly to someone apparently responsible for cleaning/maintaining them.
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    It's pretty common in Tunisia as well, especially on beaches.
  - gerbal 10y ago
    In Germany many public restrooms have an attendant who you pay and can complain to if the toilet is dirty or lacking toilet paper.
- hxsatvv 10y ago
  "foreign"
- a_humean 10y ago
  In the UK the majority of public toilets have been removed over the past few decades, and some of them have been replaced by paid toilets run by private companies where you pay a small fee (<£1). The removal and ofttimes poor maintenance of the public loos by local government and then privatisation was actually quite political at the time! Now people are just resigned to the fact that public loos don't really exist, and you just need to get a coffee at Starbucks if you really need to go.
- Grue3 10y ago
  Antwerp, Belgium. Utrecht, Netherlands. Can confirm there's not a single free public toilet in these cities.
gregwtmtno 10y ago
Where I live, we don't have pay toilets, but when I was on vacation last I thought they were great. I was happy to pay a little bit for a clean bathroom instead of having to go at a coffee shop or restaurant. Stallman has a point, but it's easily addressable. The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. I'd even be happy to pay more to use the bathrooms to subsidize such a program.
- hxsatvv 10y ago
  Those pay toilets are private owned
- IanCal 10y ago
  That sounds a bit awkward. How about just having the government pay for them?
- jpatokal 10y ago
  There are quite a few countries like Australia and Japan where public toilets are free, reasonably ubiquitous and generally clean.
  - wwwigham 10y ago
    I had the opportunity to use public bidets with heated seats in Osaka. It felt very fancy, and my only complaint was that the previous user had left the seat on "extremely warm". I wasn't expecting anything in particular, but it was a very nice public bathroom.
    - dom0 10y ago
      If the only complaint about a public toilet is the setting of the seat warmer, then there is definitely something done right there :)
- mrleiter 10y ago
  >The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. Wouldn't work in Europe - Art. 18 TFEU.
_yosefk 10y ago
Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor people money instead of spending time (and in this case, a certain effort you can't even brag about in polite society) on yet another boycott? Is there any social institution that is not boycotted by Stallman?
- kuschku 10y ago
  Well, paid toilets should be funded by taxes – that way you aren’t tracked, and anyone – even the poor and homeless – can use them. There are two independent solutions for this: Many countries, like Singapore, have the government directly own public toilets. In other places, like some states of Germany, the government instead pays restaurants and shops to open their toilets to the public.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. Also god save me from using a toilet a homeless has used before. Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. Then does the government pay to renovate the property? Sure, in the next 10 years sometime...
    - kuschku 10y ago
      > Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. If I pay taxes, the government knows I live in the country. If I pay for the toilets, someone can create a full and detailed movement profile of where I am when, and track me – and predict where I will be on what day at what time. Paying separately, with each payment tracked by location, creates a rough, but still usable geolocation system. Which can be abused in the same way as giving everyone an ankle monitor, or as having location tracking active on your phone. > Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. That mentality is quite troubling to see.
sambeau 10y ago
I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with. If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me.
- benevol 10y ago
  > I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman Almost certainly, it's a "joke". Flagged.
  - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    You might think it's funny, but plenty of us agree with his stance and I'm sure we could have a decent discussion about it. Whether or not the fact that it's stallman makes it suitable for HN is another matter.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- himlion 10y ago
  You are right this posting was a bit tongue in cheek with regards to the multiple Stallman posts already on the frontpage. But I do genuinely agree with him and this shows his uncompromising viewpoints and how he applies his ideals to topics outside of tech.
- eumoria 10y ago
  I know at least in my city the removal of public bathrooms is due to homeless and drug problem. If you have 24 hour public toilets they just become homeless houses. It is frustrating though to be on the train through a less-than-great neighborhood and having to go to the bathroom... knowing that there are no available public ones and all of the commercial entities either try and refuse or force you to purchase something. Bit of a nightmare when you're in that I NEED TO GO NOW emergency mode.
hxsatvv 10y ago
hxsatvv: Reasons Not to Pay Attention to Anything Richard Stallman Says
dingo_bat 10y ago
> Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. Can't this be applied to basically anything? Food, water, electricity, pubic transport. Let's refuse to pay for all of these otherwise the poor can't afford it. Is this a parody webpage?
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  You don't think society has a duty to feed people who would otherwise starve to death? Who do you think should pay to clean up the rotting corpse they leave behind?
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    Why would you pay for other people's food? Are you kidding? Cleaning up a corpse is much cheaper than feeding a poor person her whole life.
    - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
      Because I'd rather live in a world where a few pennies out of my pocket results in everyone living a decent life, sans street corpses. Seriously, even if you're an extreme individualist, is there NO price you would pay to not have dead bodies strewn about the streets?
      - dingo_bat 10y ago
        So you moved the goalposts. You were talking about the economic thing to do. I responded accordingly. Now you want to talk about ethics and morality.
    - spacehacker 10y ago
      It comes down to values. Our values have been shaped by stories that on average yield a high reward for a lot of people and they are based on aesthetics, empathy, social stability, food, peace, absence of pain and chaos and so on. But it also has more direct causal motivation: If you don't fight for basic human rights, taxes, plurality etc., you will likely erode the stability of your own life unless you are completely emotionally, economically and technologically independent (which I doubt you are). There is always the possibility of an unexpected economic decline which a rational agent should take into account for maximizing their reward signals.
gcatalfamo 10y ago
I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. Although I understand his point: - I find pay toilets cleaner and I am not sure it is worth delving into changing the national policy of better maintained free clean toilets with all the problem we want to see addressed first; - I am starting to think his addressing to "proprietary" stuff is more related to "avoid paying" than defending what is free.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  > I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. So just like any touring speaker? > - I am starting to think his addressing to "proprietary" stuff is more related to "avoid paying" than defending what is free. This view is false. You should read more of what he has written, especially in regard to 'free' services that are only financially free.
- zeroxfe 10y ago
  > I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me -- it's probably the least "fans" could do to have a celebrity at their event, which he's going out of his way to attend.
- oelmekki 10y ago
  > he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go I assume this means he was not paid for his intervention otherwise? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In my city, there is a big punk squat/concert room which does not pay bands for playing, but they provide them with shelter and food. That's like, the minimum when you ask someone to come. Also, I wouldn't see myself inviting friends to my place and ask them to pay for their food.
fattire 10y ago
Of course, there is a story: https://psmag.com/why-don-t-we-have-pay-toilets-in-america-26efede62d6b https://psmag.com/why-don-t-we-have-pay-toilets-in-america-2... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...
devoply 10y ago
Relevant: https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solving-the-age-old-public-toilet-problem https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solvin...
noobermin 10y ago
Click on his home page and there's a 17 items in a list at the top of "What's bad about:"
tuna-piano 10y ago
I wonder how he feels about using a toilet in a restaurant/cafe that is "For customers only". Should he stop using any bathroom in these commercial places? Many things are necessary in life. Most of those things cost money. If you think poor people should be able to afford them too, then give them money (direct or through government) and let them spend it how they want. I suspect they may find pay toilets convenient as well.
- himlion 10y ago
  I guess this boils down to whether you consider access to toilets a public good or a private good. Everyone* has a toilet at home, but its it the job of the government to supply sanitation in all public spaces?
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    I'm ok with government run/subsidized pay toilets, if no private company is willing to provide service in an area. But if something is free, usually the service quality is also such, and many people, who would not use it if it was not free are not taking care and ruining these services.
fiatjaf 10y ago
So you can pay for toilets, but you choose to use free toilets. You're making these free toilets worse by your usage and creating incentive for them to become paid, only making things worse for those who cannot pay.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  Basically this was the mechanism the USA won the cold war against the USSR. Now almost all former socialist states are capitalist, because they went bankrupt.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    That makes no sense. You are saying that the USSR went bankrupt because people were trying to use things in it for free? Surely it has a lot more to do with the political oppression and top down control of the economy.
    - kodfodrasz 10y ago
      People in this topic are arguing for free toilets paid by the government. Now what is that if not a top down control of economy?
      - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
        They aren't preventing private toilets - free or otherwise - being created. Pretty simple.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  That initially sounds like it makes sense, but in reality it doesn't. For any bathroom facility there is already a relatively fixed regular cost being applied to maintain them. As free bathrooms are nearly always funded by community purses their existence is justified by usage, whereas paid bathrooms are nearly always funded by commercial entities which justify their existence with profit.
pepitrof 10y ago
Some years ago the first time I saw a pay toilet I thought the same way, but later on one day I was stomach sick, I appreciated so much that just paying 0.5€ it was ensuring me a perfectly clean and hygienical toilet to spend a sick moment of my life, I'm not against public toilets, I'm neither against pay ones.
pepitrof 10y ago
Some years ago the first time I saw a pay toilet I thought the same way, but later on one day I was stomach sick, I appreciated so much that just paying 0.5€ it was ensuring me a perfectly clean and hygienical toilet to spend a sick moment of my life, I'm not against public toilets, I'm neither against pay ones.
i_feel_great 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_toilet
Tharkun 10y ago
I understand why toilets aren't free. Free public toilets in urban areas are almost invariably dens of filth and crime. Unfortunately, pay toilets are invariably filthy themselves. It boggles the mind that rich "western" countries aren't able to keep public infrastructre clean and free.
- WJW 10y ago
  Luckily, there is a startup "disrupting" the toilet experience! Feast your eyes on (2theloo)http://www.2theloo.com/ http://www.2theloo.com/]. The name is also a pun on a slang phrase for "see you later!" in Dutch.
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  In my experience, it's a function of the environment in which the toilet lies. A toilet in a quiet underground car park is almost guaranteed to be more disgusting than a toilet in a well-lit, busy concourse. I've used pay toilets that are pretty disgusting, too; never thought to ask for a refund, though...
hhyubb 10y ago
Why would you go to a pay toilet when you can just grab a beer and use that place's toilet?
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Taking this view to its logical conclusion will be that all private businesses should be illegal. Such experiments were tried in large parts of the world in the 20th century. We all know how they turned out.
tete 10y ago
I still am not a fan of Stallman and still have to agree. Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. Maybe I'll stop using some of those services. I actually have a resolution going on about not buying books off Amazon anymore. I just came across too many authors and bookshop saying that Amazon has the practice of saying "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book". I used to like Amazon, and heck, I also was understanding about them trying to avoid taxes, because most companies start doing that at some point, but extorting authors of books is way too horrible. Also here there are counter examples. There is many games you can get from the developers, from Steam and from GoG for example, so why can't Amazon not be horrible? Sorry, got a bit distracted about the Amazon link also being up there. Calls for boycotting companies somehow aren't as popular anymore, despite having the internet and topics like the NDAP going viral. I think most people agree that in our society money has a lot of power and phrases like "vote with your money" have a point. Yet looking at the 60s till 80s those things were way more popular, which is a bit odd. Be it Skype, Uber or Amazon. You don't have to hate them, but calling out bad practices and acting upon that information with not using their services seems to be a reasonable way to have a positive impact. In other words it seems odd that certain minor design improvements can justify paying a lot more for a product or service, while that barely seems to be true for the ethics of a product - outside of the food sector that is.
- endgame 10y ago
  > Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. From what I've seen, his extreme positions are often from him looking further than a lot of other people.
- true_religion 10y ago
  > "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book" Amazon thinks of themselves as a publisher now, so when you put your book on Amazon without publishing via them they view you as 'the competition' using their hard won resources. As a publisher, they view asking for exclusive rights to be a normal course of doing business. The problem is that some people still think they're just a book store.
CarolineW 10y ago
It's 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 was submitted and discussed just 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13322288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13322288 (56 comments)
chvid 10y ago
The problem with stallmanism is that you eventually run out of other people's toilets.
j7ake 10y ago
Going to great lengths to not use a pay toilet is OK if the only person who suffers is yourself. Once you have a family your priorities change. Many of Stallman's advice works well when you are a bachelor... But once you have family to think about, the arguments are less persuasive.
johnchristopher 10y ago
So we can't have political thread anymore but three stallman op-ed on the same day is okay ? Is today's date going to be the annual stallman-right-or-wrong-you-discuss day?
JackPoach 10y ago
That's one crappy post. I can't believe Stallman is taking a dump on pay toilets. He should really piss off.
xchip 10y ago
Unfortunately in Belgium you have to pay to use the toilets, even if there is a cover charge. Richard Stallman is probably here because of the FOSS and hence the post.
GnarfGnarf 10y ago
I think the German idea of paying businesses to allow the public to use their toilets, is brilliant. It's cheaper for the government than running their own toilets.
hkjgkjy 10y ago
I don't understand americans on this point... I thought us Ëürøpæans were supposed to be the socialist ones? I for one LOVE the City Toilets I find all around in Berlin. Thank you for providing this service, I'm happy to pay for it.

114 points by himlion 10y ago

DiabloD3 10y ago

Where in the fuck are there pay toilets? Is this a foreign thing?

Mic92 10y ago
Germany
- skbohra123 10y ago
  India too, at many places.
  - progval 10y ago
    I sometimes see pay toilets in France too
    - doall 10y ago
      In Thailand too
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  Also in Hungary. Free toilets are not common, only in government buildings, like schools, museums, government agency offices. Usually paid toilets are cheap (.5-1 €) and clean. Free toilets are not always so clean.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    Cheap? 0,5 Euro is not cheap.
    - kodfodrasz 10y ago
      I'm not sure where do you live. It is cheap even by Hungarian standards, where average wages are around 800 euros. You must see that public toilets are seldom used by the individual, usually one can serve such needs at home, at school, at work or at a restaurant, where it is usually free (for guests at restaurants). When one is in the (usually unexpected) need, then prefers cleanliness to freeness.
ekns 10y ago
Random examples from recent experience: Some exist in Finland (at least in Helsinki). Also saw one recently in a train station in Belgium, and IIRC a train station in the Netherlands. Also in the North of Argentina near some bus station, where you would pay directly to someone apparently responsible for cleaning/maintaining them.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  It's pretty common in Tunisia as well, especially on beaches.
- gerbal 10y ago
  In Germany many public restrooms have an attendant who you pay and can complain to if the toilet is dirty or lacking toilet paper.
hxsatvv 10y ago
"foreign"
a_humean 10y ago
In the UK the majority of public toilets have been removed over the past few decades, and some of them have been replaced by paid toilets run by private companies where you pay a small fee (<£1). The removal and ofttimes poor maintenance of the public loos by local government and then privatisation was actually quite political at the time! Now people are just resigned to the fact that public loos don't really exist, and you just need to get a coffee at Starbucks if you really need to go.
Grue3 10y ago
Antwerp, Belgium. Utrecht, Netherlands. Can confirm there's not a single free public toilet in these cities.

gregwtmtno 10y ago

Where I live, we don't have pay toilets, but when I was on vacation last I thought they were great. I was happy to pay a little bit for a clean bathroom instead of having to go at a coffee shop or restaurant. Stallman has a point, but it's easily addressable. The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. I'd even be happy to pay more to use the bathrooms to subsidize such a program.

hxsatvv 10y ago
Those pay toilets are private owned
IanCal 10y ago
That sounds a bit awkward. How about just having the government pay for them?
jpatokal 10y ago
There are quite a few countries like Australia and Japan where public toilets are free, reasonably ubiquitous and generally clean.
- wwwigham 10y ago
  I had the opportunity to use public bidets with heated seats in Osaka. It felt very fancy, and my only complaint was that the previous user had left the seat on "extremely warm". I wasn't expecting anything in particular, but it was a very nice public bathroom.
  - dom0 10y ago
    If the only complaint about a public toilet is the setting of the seat warmer, then there is definitely something done right there :)
mrleiter 10y ago
>The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. Wouldn't work in Europe - Art. 18 TFEU.

_yosefk 10y ago

Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor people money instead of spending time (and in this case, a certain effort you can't even brag about in polite society) on yet another boycott? Is there any social institution that is not boycotted by Stallman?

kuschku 10y ago
Well, paid toilets should be funded by taxes – that way you aren’t tracked, and anyone – even the poor and homeless – can use them. There are two independent solutions for this: Many countries, like Singapore, have the government directly own public toilets. In other places, like some states of Germany, the government instead pays restaurants and shops to open their toilets to the public.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. Also god save me from using a toilet a homeless has used before. Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. Then does the government pay to renovate the property? Sure, in the next 10 years sometime...
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. If I pay taxes, the government knows I live in the country. If I pay for the toilets, someone can create a full and detailed movement profile of where I am when, and track me – and predict where I will be on what day at what time. Paying separately, with each payment tracked by location, creates a rough, but still usable geolocation system. Which can be abused in the same way as giving everyone an ankle monitor, or as having location tracking active on your phone. > Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. That mentality is quite troubling to see.

sambeau 10y ago

I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with. If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me.

benevol 10y ago
> I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman Almost certainly, it's a "joke". Flagged.
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  You might think it's funny, but plenty of us agree with his stance and I'm sure we could have a decent discussion about it. Whether or not the fact that it's stallman makes it suitable for HN is another matter.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
himlion 10y ago
You are right this posting was a bit tongue in cheek with regards to the multiple Stallman posts already on the frontpage. But I do genuinely agree with him and this shows his uncompromising viewpoints and how he applies his ideals to topics outside of tech.
eumoria 10y ago
I know at least in my city the removal of public bathrooms is due to homeless and drug problem. If you have 24 hour public toilets they just become homeless houses. It is frustrating though to be on the train through a less-than-great neighborhood and having to go to the bathroom... knowing that there are no available public ones and all of the commercial entities either try and refuse or force you to purchase something. Bit of a nightmare when you're in that I NEED TO GO NOW emergency mode.

hxsatvv 10y ago

hxsatvv: Reasons Not to Pay Attention to Anything Richard Stallman Says

dingo_bat 10y ago

> Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. Can't this be applied to basically anything? Food, water, electricity, pubic transport. Let's refuse to pay for all of these otherwise the poor can't afford it. Is this a parody webpage?

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
You don't think society has a duty to feed people who would otherwise starve to death? Who do you think should pay to clean up the rotting corpse they leave behind?
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Why would you pay for other people's food? Are you kidding? Cleaning up a corpse is much cheaper than feeding a poor person her whole life.
  - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    Because I'd rather live in a world where a few pennies out of my pocket results in everyone living a decent life, sans street corpses. Seriously, even if you're an extreme individualist, is there NO price you would pay to not have dead bodies strewn about the streets?
    - dingo_bat 10y ago
      So you moved the goalposts. You were talking about the economic thing to do. I responded accordingly. Now you want to talk about ethics and morality.
  - spacehacker 10y ago
    It comes down to values. Our values have been shaped by stories that on average yield a high reward for a lot of people and they are based on aesthetics, empathy, social stability, food, peace, absence of pain and chaos and so on. But it also has more direct causal motivation: If you don't fight for basic human rights, taxes, plurality etc., you will likely erode the stability of your own life unless you are completely emotionally, economically and technologically independent (which I doubt you are). There is always the possibility of an unexpected economic decline which a rational agent should take into account for maximizing their reward signals.

gcatalfamo 10y ago

I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. Although I understand his point: - I find pay toilets cleaner and I am not sure it is worth delving into changing the national policy of better maintained free clean toilets with all the problem we want to see addressed first; - I am starting to think his addressing to "proprietary" stuff is more related to "avoid paying" than defending what is free.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago
> I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. So just like any touring speaker? > - I am starting to think his addressing to "proprietary" stuff is more related to "avoid paying" than defending what is free. This view is false. You should read more of what he has written, especially in regard to 'free' services that are only financially free.
zeroxfe 10y ago
> I don't want to be "that guy" but, here in Italy, I have heard of several accounts of Stallmans visiting local Linux User Groups (full of his "fans"), and he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me -- it's probably the least "fans" could do to have a celebrity at their event, which he's going out of his way to attend.
oelmekki 10y ago
> he would have them pay for his dinner or he wouldn't go I assume this means he was not paid for his intervention otherwise? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In my city, there is a big punk squat/concert room which does not pay bands for playing, but they provide them with shelter and food. That's like, the minimum when you ask someone to come. Also, I wouldn't see myself inviting friends to my place and ask them to pay for their food.

fattire 10y ago

Of course, there is a story: https://psmag.com/why-don-t-we-have-pay-toilets-in-america-26efede62d6b https://psmag.com/why-don-t-we-have-pay-toilets-in-america-2... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...

devoply 10y ago

Relevant: https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solving-the-age-old-public-toilet-problem https://www.fastcoexist.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solvin...

noobermin 10y ago

Click on his home page and there's a 17 items in a list at the top of "What's bad about:"

tuna-piano 10y ago

I wonder how he feels about using a toilet in a restaurant/cafe that is "For customers only". Should he stop using any bathroom in these commercial places? Many things are necessary in life. Most of those things cost money. If you think poor people should be able to afford them too, then give them money (direct or through government) and let them spend it how they want. I suspect they may find pay toilets convenient as well.

himlion 10y ago
I guess this boils down to whether you consider access to toilets a public good or a private good. Everyone* has a toilet at home, but its it the job of the government to supply sanitation in all public spaces?
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  I'm ok with government run/subsidized pay toilets, if no private company is willing to provide service in an area. But if something is free, usually the service quality is also such, and many people, who would not use it if it was not free are not taking care and ruining these services.

fiatjaf 10y ago

So you can pay for toilets, but you choose to use free toilets. You're making these free toilets worse by your usage and creating incentive for them to become paid, only making things worse for those who cannot pay.

kodfodrasz 10y ago
Basically this was the mechanism the USA won the cold war against the USSR. Now almost all former socialist states are capitalist, because they went bankrupt.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  That makes no sense. You are saying that the USSR went bankrupt because people were trying to use things in it for free? Surely it has a lot more to do with the political oppression and top down control of the economy.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    People in this topic are arguing for free toilets paid by the government. Now what is that if not a top down control of economy?
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      They aren't preventing private toilets - free or otherwise - being created. Pretty simple.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
That initially sounds like it makes sense, but in reality it doesn't. For any bathroom facility there is already a relatively fixed regular cost being applied to maintain them. As free bathrooms are nearly always funded by community purses their existence is justified by usage, whereas paid bathrooms are nearly always funded by commercial entities which justify their existence with profit.

pepitrof 10y ago

Some years ago the first time I saw a pay toilet I thought the same way, but later on one day I was stomach sick, I appreciated so much that just paying 0.5€ it was ensuring me a perfectly clean and hygienical toilet to spend a sick moment of my life, I'm not against public toilets, I'm neither against pay ones.

pepitrof 10y ago

i_feel_great 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_toilet

Tharkun 10y ago

I understand why toilets aren't free. Free public toilets in urban areas are almost invariably dens of filth and crime. Unfortunately, pay toilets are invariably filthy themselves. It boggles the mind that rich "western" countries aren't able to keep public infrastructre clean and free.

WJW 10y ago
Luckily, there is a startup "disrupting" the toilet experience! Feast your eyes on (2theloo)http://www.2theloo.com/ http://www.2theloo.com/]. The name is also a pun on a slang phrase for "see you later!" in Dutch.
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
In my experience, it's a function of the environment in which the toilet lies. A toilet in a quiet underground car park is almost guaranteed to be more disgusting than a toilet in a well-lit, busy concourse. I've used pay toilets that are pretty disgusting, too; never thought to ask for a refund, though...

hhyubb 10y ago

Why would you go to a pay toilet when you can just grab a beer and use that place's toilet?

maverick_iceman 10y ago

Taking this view to its logical conclusion will be that all private businesses should be illegal. Such experiments were tried in large parts of the world in the 20th century. We all know how they turned out.

tete 10y ago

I still am not a fan of Stallman and still have to agree. Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. Maybe I'll stop using some of those services. I actually have a resolution going on about not buying books off Amazon anymore. I just came across too many authors and bookshop saying that Amazon has the practice of saying "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book". I used to like Amazon, and heck, I also was understanding about them trying to avoid taxes, because most companies start doing that at some point, but extorting authors of books is way too horrible. Also here there are counter examples. There is many games you can get from the developers, from Steam and from GoG for example, so why can't Amazon not be horrible? Sorry, got a bit distracted about the Amazon link also being up there. Calls for boycotting companies somehow aren't as popular anymore, despite having the internet and topics like the NDAP going viral. I think most people agree that in our society money has a lot of power and phrases like "vote with your money" have a point. Yet looking at the 60s till 80s those things were way more popular, which is a bit odd. Be it Skype, Uber or Amazon. You don't have to hate them, but calling out bad practices and acting upon that information with not using their services seems to be a reasonable way to have a positive impact. In other words it seems odd that certain minor design improvements can justify paying a lot more for a product or service, while that barely seems to be true for the ethics of a product - outside of the food sector that is.

endgame 10y ago
> Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. From what I've seen, his extreme positions are often from him looking further than a lot of other people.
true_religion 10y ago
> "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book" Amazon thinks of themselves as a publisher now, so when you put your book on Amazon without publishing via them they view you as 'the competition' using their hard won resources. As a publisher, they view asking for exclusive rights to be a normal course of doing business. The problem is that some people still think they're just a book store.

CarolineW 10y ago

It's 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 was submitted and discussed just 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13322288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13322288 (56 comments)

chvid 10y ago

The problem with stallmanism is that you eventually run out of other people's toilets.

j7ake 10y ago

Going to great lengths to not use a pay toilet is OK if the only person who suffers is yourself. Once you have a family your priorities change. Many of Stallman's advice works well when you are a bachelor... But once you have family to think about, the arguments are less persuasive.

johnchristopher 10y ago

So we can't have political thread anymore but three stallman op-ed on the same day is okay ? Is today's date going to be the annual stallman-right-or-wrong-you-discuss day?

JackPoach 10y ago

That's one crappy post. I can't believe Stallman is taking a dump on pay toilets. He should really piss off.

xchip 10y ago

Unfortunately in Belgium you have to pay to use the toilets, even if there is a cover charge. Richard Stallman is probably here because of the FOSS and hence the post.

GnarfGnarf 10y ago

I think the German idea of paying businesses to allow the public to use their toilets, is brilliant. It's cheaper for the government than running their own toilets.

hkjgkjy 10y ago

I don't understand americans on this point... I thought us Ëürøpæans were supposed to be the socialist ones? I for one LOVE the City Toilets I find all around in Berlin. Thank you for providing this service, I'm happy to pay for it.