The absence of details — and,
as Futurism noted, the known anti-China bias of the source — makes the whole story feel if not far-fetched, then exaggerated for effect and, perhaps more to the point, not really accounting for cultural differences. What reads as an outrageous imposition in one country might be an unremarkable experiment in another. It’s still not clear who authorized it, and on what level, for starters.
However, since there are photos and videos confirming that this toilet paper laundromat setup does, in fact, exist somewhere in China, it’s, in our view, less interesting whether it's a one-off stunt or the beginning of a trend or what cultural tendencies are at play here. What we want to zoom in on is the phenomenon itself: the idea that even something as basic and essential as toilet paper can now be gated behind ads. Regardless of the country or the scale, that’s the part worth paying attention to.
