I was reading the super summarized version of capital that Nia Frome wrote on red sails, and this question popped into my head. In the general formulation, capitalists exploit workers who they employ, because they pay them a wage that is not in line with the value that they imbue into their product. When I think about a laundromat, though, there’s not really any employees to be exploited, seemingly. There’s certainly an owner, and they are renting out a service, but they don’t have employees working under them. Is it more akin to like, being a landlord? I was also thinking it has similarities to the Terry Pratchett “boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness” in the sense that if you can’t afford the whole washing machine, or live in a place without one, you end up spending much more on washing clothes in the long run. Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts comrades :].
They own the means of production (of clean and dry clothes).
They can increase the "rents" or reduce supply or let the machines go unmaintained/replaced and charge the same amount of money for less and less of a service. Heck, I'm sure I've seen signs in laundromats that say something like "Not responsible if the machines eat your money".
So yeah, like, the people who are using the machines would be the people most likely to be exploited.
Most likely people who consistently use laundromats probably don't have stable housing.