Off-Grid, Sensor-Driven, and User-Rated: The Restroom Reinvention That’s Redefining Civic Tech “When it comes to public restrooms, the U.S. ranks 30th in the world—tied with Botswana.” (Source: WSJ, reporting on Throne Labs) America’s public restroom crisis isn’t about plumbing. It’s about incentives, accountability, and a classic case of the Tragedy of the Commons. We’ve all seen it: build a free public facility, make it anonymous and maintenance-heavy, and within weeks it becomes unusable. No one owns it, so no one protects it. The result? 💸 San Francisco’s $1.7 million toilets ⏳ Years of planning for a single bathroom 😬 Near-zero public trust in shared infrastructure Throne Labs has build a “bathroom-as-a-service” model with: 🔐 Gated access via text/app, even for dumbphones 🧼 Real-time user ratings that trigger cleanings 🚭 Sensors for smoke, odors, and overstays (10-minute limit!) 🌞 Fully off-grid units with solar, water tanks, and no utility hookups ⚖️ Digital accountability without tracking your identity What they’re really solving isn’t sanitation—it’s how to design for human behavior. Like Uber ratings or Airbnbs with clear house rules, these Thrones use software to align individual behavior with communal benefit. 📍 Cities like LA and Ann Arbor are already signing multi-year deals—because they’re faster to deploy, cheaper to maintain, and actually stay clean. I’m fascinated by civic tech solutions that combine economics + behavior + sensors + services into something practical. This is the kind of “lollapalooza” effect Charlie Munger would appreciate: multiple forces working together to fix a problem that has plagued cities for decades. What other public problems could we fix if we assumed misuse, built for accountability, and let tech do the heavy lifting? Should every piece of civic infrastructure have a rating system? https://lnkd.in/egyPxJvW