Now I’m wishing more public spaces inside and out were archived forever like this - imagine we had this 1000/2000/3000 years ago and seeing how it was like back then!
> has a countdown timer above warning visitors that the door will auto-open in x amount of time.
A toilet that has a door with a countdown seems like the most stress-inducing thing ever.
Years ago when I was in New York often, I had the idea to make a paid bathroom app, with a bit of a luxury twist. You’d pay $30 or whatever a month to have access to 40+ well-designed bathrooms across the city. The idea was that we’d own and operate these, and they’d be extremely well-designed, have beautiful tile interiors, come with a variety of hygiene products, water bottles, and so on.
I still think it could work, but over time I began to dislike the idea, as it would have been yet another example of the public commons essentially being eroded and replaced with a privatized paid system. Not that NYC public bathrooms are even remotely nice to begin with… but I think a better solution would be less deliberately exclusionary. Then again, what could be more NYC than the idea of paying money to get better things?
Also, what is the public commons that's being eroded in this scenario? Public toilets are few and far between but also kind of don't seem like a commons. I'd imagine a commons is something like a fishery or something. Pretty easy to control access to toilets. They have doors and as most European countries have proven, you can charge for the access to those doors.
And I think public access to toilets, at least in NYC, should probably be something more like the subway system than a service just for those that can pay a lot. Even then, the subway isn’t really a life need in the way a toilet is. (Yes I’m aware that it costs money to ride the subway, but it’s not very expensive.) I can imagine the service I described being branded by the press/public as bathrooms only for the rich.
As I said, norms around this aren’t the same around the world. It’s normal to pay for a toilet in Europe but many Americans have a negative reaction to the idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...
That may have been the only place I ever saw the real pay-toilet coin boxes. Anywhere else was simply gatekept by being a patron of the restaurant or store. Of course, in 1980s San Diego, there were zero public toilets of any kind, anywhere in town. All of the toilets were inside businesses, maintained by those businesses, and 100% closed to non-customers.
Also obligatory fluffy and sticky floor mat is missing.
Gemini: You've spotted a real historical and geographical divide. Door knobs are predominantly an Anglo-American standard, while lever handles dominate continental Europe, Scandinavia, and much of the rest of the world.