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Comment by blackbagboys | Hacker News Reader

It seems like this problem could more easily be solved with a vending machine than a complicated facial recognition apparatus.

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I think they wanted to make it free but still deal with the fact that anything that isn't nailed down will get stolen in China. Even toilet paper - you should see the "rations" many hotels there give to guests for a night's stay.

> anything that isn't nailed down will get stolen

In Brazil as well.

Vending machines still means you’d have to pay for it. Beijing tried to market itself as international-level tourism, but can’t provide free TP? That would be too much loss of face (pun intended).

Might be remembering wrong, but I thought when I went to the Eiffel Tower about 30 years ago, I had to pay to use the bathroom (there was a coin thing on the door to the stalls). That doesn't seem very different to me, though obviously someone can pay to use a toilet and take all the toilet paper if it's on a roll inside.

Bathrooms in London train stations used to be free - but a few years back, a lot of them started charging money. Usually around 20p, sometimes as much as 50p [1].

You can usually avoid paying (many stations have pubs and restaurants with free toilets, for example) but you don't have to go to 30 years ago to find OECD countries charging for public toilets :)

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-statio...

I’m not sure what the point is. I encountered for-pay toilets long before I learned to pack my own TP around in Beijing. It’s just not very comparable. A good day was when you could find one that was sitting and not squatting.

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