[shoo]

Lucky you only had to pay the broker and not the building too.

Obligatory:

  “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 he tried the knob. 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.”
  In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. 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.
  From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
  “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
  Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”

-- Philip K. Dick, Ubik

[reaperman]

In the past 1-2 decades we've seen so many things get hyper-monetized which used to be free - playing sports at the park, restrooms, cups of water with a meal, shopping carts that need a quarter to unlock. Ubik was written in 1969; I wonder what trends Philip K. Dick was exposed to between 1945-1969 which led to him imagining a dystopian world not too far beyond where we are today.