Well I’ve heard of a Coin operated boy but not an elevator.
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.
It was like this in the 70s in my building
TBH I would prefer if it was still like this, because now that is free and everyone is using it, I’m paying €200/year for electric and maintenance for an elevator that I take once a month (split bill between all apartments)
Edit: I take it once a month because I live at the second floor and it’s faster to take the stairs, not because I’m renting to someone else
Yeah, let’s charge people for every little bit of the building you in particular don’t use. Fuck it, coin operated fire suppression systems because Wispy2891 doesn’t want to pay for the maintenance in a building he or she lives in.
Well at the fifth floor there’s an asshole that’s renting the whole floor on Airbnb and I’m contributing to that, with all the up and down traffic of tourists. Would you be happy? Before the Airbnb I spent way less than that
The coin was just a token, 100 lire (0.05€ + 50 years of inflation, let’s say 50 cents). It doesn’t cover maintenance but it avoids assholes repurposing a residential apartment as hotels. And it had a key to bypass it (example: wheelchairs and such)
