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[–] 16 points 2 months ago (3 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.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 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).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Sure, but the point is that they're not a good example of "rent seeking", which is specifically where companies require things that used to be included in a fixed cost and break it out as a separate payment, at no benefit to the user.

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