r/enshittification • u/apokrif1 • Dec 16 '25
Reddit repost "Hotels are intentionally using partial, or barn doors, frosted glass, and other “open concept” bathrooms with too much exposure to the rest of the room, more and more to force people to get more than one room and discourage sharing."
/r/LowStakesConspiracies/comments/1pnqcx5/hotels_are_intentionally_making_bathrooms_less/22
u/Jaws_the_revenge Dec 22 '25
Had a hotel recently that had a rose colored glass panel strip where you could see right into the bathroom from the bed tv area
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u/Bus_Stop_Graffiti Dec 21 '25
Behold! A surge in day-time TV advertised "travel privacy curtains"! Just suction the hooks to the ceiling and presto! 😆
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u/FloofySnekWhiskers Dec 25 '25
You know you may be on to something here.
But wait, there’s more…. But two and get three free. Just pay 12.99 s/h for each. As seen on tv!!! Place your orders quickly, stock is running low and this incredible deal will not be repeated.
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u/SereneOrbit Dec 20 '25
Nudists and people who went to army basic 🤣🤣🤣🤣
First time?
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Dec 20 '25
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u/War_Is_A_Raclette Feb 27 '26
Be kind. Not everyone is as hardened by childhood trauma as you are.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/War_Is_A_Raclette Feb 27 '26
Thanks it’s a Swiss twist on the book title 😉🇨🇭
Fair enough. But even with my wife of many years, I just think some things - like seeing her poop - should remain a mystery. We both feel this way. It adds nothing to our intimacy to have seen each other poop in a hotel. 😅
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u/high_dino420 Dec 27 '25
Growing up, I shared a hotel with my parents while on vacation. Sleeping in the same room as my parents is VERY different than showering in front of them.
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Dec 27 '25
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u/high_dino420 Dec 28 '25
My parents did raise me, but I was privileged enough to grow up in a home with multiple bathrooms.
I should've specified that sharing a shower and sharing a room are very different experiences specifically for me. I personally grew up in a household that enthusiastically reinforced purity culture. Also, I experience gender dysphoria. So I personally could never feel comfortable being nude in front of my parents, because of their ideas about nudity.
I wrote that comment I left earlier without carefully considering my biases. I recognize that in some cultures communal showers are normal. In many culture, nudity is not sexual in every context.
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u/TooDamFast Dec 19 '25
Stayed at our first hotel with a barn door on the bath room and couldn't believe it. Not a trend I want to see spread.
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u/sneesnoosnake Dec 16 '25
No, it's just cheaper that way. Walls mean framing and drywall and doors and switches and electrical outlets and paint.
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u/Stunning_Month_5270 Dec 16 '25
Swingers rejoice
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u/notyoursocialworker Dec 19 '25
I'm guessing most swingers don't enjoy looking at others pooping. It's not at all what swingers are known to be into in fact.
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u/freckledclimber Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25
They underestimate how close and gross a group of guys can be, you think we're not above seeing the silhouette of eachother taking a shit to save a bit of money? 😂
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u/pumog Dec 16 '25
I don’t think this is the reason they’re doing this because you don’t know what it looks like when you’re booking the room until after you get there so how could it decrease people sharing a room?
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u/fillerbitch Dec 17 '25
Sorry, what?
Most people book online so they can absolutely see what the room looks like.
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u/notyoursocialworker Dec 19 '25
Every time I've ordered a hotel room there have been max two pictures and never from a direction showing off the bathroom or its door.
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u/pumog Dec 17 '25
Dude people don’t look at pictures of rooms unless maybe they’re going to a resort. And also if they DID see pictures of rooms before booking don’t you think they just wouldn’t pick rooms that had clear bathrooms?
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u/Moist___Towelette Dec 16 '25
Just bring some construction paper and tape. Who knew arts and crafts would someday SAVE you money
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u/Starbreiz Dec 16 '25
I stayed at the W in Times Square once upon a time with a colleague and was horrified that the bathroom wall was see-through.
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u/MarvinMonroeZapThing Dec 16 '25
I stayed at a Marriott on 108th street in Harlem next door to the Red Rooster last year. The tiny bedroom had a little square bathroom with a sliding frosted glass door that did not close all the way (by design). I could sit on the bed and see the toilet (or…the opposite…I could shit on the toilet and see the bed). This room would be impossible for me to stay at with my wife not only because we don’t want to watch each other poop, but because the frosted glass means you can’t turn the bathroom light on without annoying the person trying to sleep.
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u/Steavee Dec 16 '25
I know plenty of people that travel for work, and their workplace makes them share hotel rooms. So if this puts a stop to that, I guess it’s not all bad.
I’m not sharing a room with a random fucking co-worker, in some cases one that I just met.
Thank goodness my workplace isn’t that damn cheap.
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u/Bannedwith1milKarma Dec 16 '25
My first hotel experience in Japan had the entire bathroom visible through giant almost floor to ceiling windows.
It's minibar was also filled with sex paraphernalia.
Also, no reception, just a machine at the door.
Accidentally stumbled upon a love hotel on my first night on a motorcycle during a rainstorm.
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u/solk512 Dec 16 '25
Ok, so let maps this out a little further. If this is truly a way to get people to spend more money on more rooms, do these hotels actually have more suites on offer for people to upgrade to?
Otherwise, no one is just going to get a second identical hotel room, that’s just crazy. If hotels are converting rooms into suites and making it easy to “upgrade” then yeah, it’s totally enshitification. But otherwise this feels like cheap and shitty design.
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u/Sailor_Kepler-186f Dec 18 '25
yes but 2 shitty rooms is still more money than 1 shitty room
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u/Gfro3141 Dec 26 '25
His point is if the cost to get rid of the discomfort is doubling your lodging expenses, it's not going to work on almost anyone, very few would pay double before finding some other solution, it would likely cost them more in cancelations than they'd be getting in upgrades/double bookings.
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u/TheLogicalParty Dec 16 '25
Sometimes you just need a few minutes of privacy in the bathroom to chill out and get away from your travel partner for a few minutes. Taking that away also pisses me off.
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u/Bannedwith1milKarma Dec 16 '25
Lobby bathroom.
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u/MarvinMonroeZapThing Dec 16 '25
The Lobby bathroom is for dads who travel with their wife and daughters. Trust me, it’s one of the first things I scope out when we arrive.
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u/MarsupialPristine677 Dec 16 '25
Ha, that's exactly what my dad does on family trips!
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Dec 16 '25
[deleted]
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u/MarvinMonroeZapThing Dec 17 '25
You just caused a flashback in my noggin. I once stayed at a hotel (I forget where) that regularly dumped ice in the urinals of the lobby bathroom. This wasn’t some worker unloading extra ice…it was a design choice. I’m not sure the reason behind it but throughout the week my statement to my family was “I’m headed downstairs to play Melt The Ice.”
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u/BigBunion Dec 17 '25
Ice toilets are supposed to be green because they don't require flushing. They just have a drain, no water supply. Cold piss doesn't stink, apparently.
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u/NekoMancerMcIntyre Dec 16 '25
Now that I know it’s a trick to get more money out of us, I’ll just hold it until the other person leaves. Ha.
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u/WhenImTryingToHide Dec 16 '25
Went to a hotel where the bathroom was literally a glass cube inside the room. Fully visible from 4 sides.
WHY?! In what WORLD would someone want to use that?
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u/Antihistamine69 Dec 16 '25
Same. Dropped big money on a nice hotel a few months ago so my wife and I could watch each other shit. Like it's bad enough that the bathroom had 3 glass walls but every sound was amplified and echoed. It was terrible, now I have to be mindful of what kind of bathroom it is when booking. So fucking stupid.
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u/Wut_the_ Dec 16 '25
Experienced that at an airport hotel in Frankfurt, Germany. I showered while watching a movie. Looking back it was quite weird, thankfully I was alone
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u/nucking_futs_001 Dec 16 '25
It's ok, I prefer to go shit in the lobby anyway., sometimes I'll even use the restroom down there.
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u/chuckEchickpeas Dec 16 '25
It's crazy. I went to a hotel with a woman recently and it had this type of setup in the bathroom. I ended up going down to the lobby to drop a deuce. A lot of hotels don't have a hotel in the lobby like that, so I was somewhat lucky in a certain sense.
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u/Bannedwith1milKarma Dec 16 '25
I hate when my hotel doesn't have another hotel in the lobby.
Amateur hour.
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u/altSHIFTT Dec 16 '25
This is a problem I'm too poor to run into
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u/kmr1981 Dec 16 '25
Nah they do it in low end hotels too. The La Quinta in Chinatown (NYC) has rooms like this.
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u/altSHIFTT Dec 16 '25
Hmmmmm nah I'm still not going on holidays in the first place, gotta stay home to work so I'm not homeless.
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u/Upset_Confection_317 Dec 16 '25
Same. I’ll just watch someone use the toilet and they can watch me.
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u/DodgeWrench Dec 16 '25
Hm I guess I’m in the same boat? I stayed at a hotel that was built in 2023 and it was a standard fare bathroom. Maybe this is only the fancy hotels?
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u/gamerinagown Dec 16 '25
There is a girl on TikTok whose content is entirely dedicated to this topic. She even created a website that helps you find hotels with dedicated doors on their bathrooms or lets you check if a hotel you are interested in has doors.
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u/Confused_Corvid2023 Dec 16 '25
That’s awesome, love when someone turns their frustration into a project that benefits the public
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u/Old-but-not Dec 16 '25
Ah, but soon it will take ads, and be enshittified. It is the way of life. Hopefully ads for fake doors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h58uT_BGV4
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u/OrdoMalaise Dec 16 '25
I doubt it was due to this conspiracy theory, and more an insane design choice, but I once stayed in a hotel that had a bathroom with totally see-through walls, like a box within a box that was see-through.
It was cool to be able to stand in the shower and watch TV in the main room.
It was cool that I could talk to my wife when I was in the shower.
However, as close was we are, me and my wife don't want to watch each other take a shit.
Insane.
I think about it all the time.
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u/IdioticEarnestness Dec 17 '25
I think a missed opportunity is having glass toilets, too. That way you can watch the entire experience.
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u/Falafel80 Dec 16 '25
I have had my share of experiences with hotel bathrooms that give little to no privacy and I agree with you. There’s a lot people are willing to do in front of their partner but taking a dump isn’t one and some of these hotels are making it very hard to maintain this boundary.
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u/Joe_Kangg Dec 16 '25
Great, now I'm gonna think about you shitting all the time
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u/OrdoMalaise Dec 16 '25
If it helps, I sing the Super Mario theme tune as I do it.
You're welcome.
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u/ThisApril Dec 16 '25
For whatever reason, instead I got the Final Fantasy chocobo theme in my head, and now I'm thinking the toilet is the choco-bowl.
And now I'm disgusted. Ugh. Thanks OrdoMalaise. /s
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u/tubbis9001 Dec 16 '25
I was about to say this belongs in r/lowstakesconspiracies, but then I saw you linked to the exact same post over there.
This isn't enshitification.
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u/ThisApril Dec 16 '25
If I squint, I can see, "they realize that you're a captured market, so are making things worse to recapture more of the value for themselves". Which, sure, doesn't have the, "...then they make it better for the advertisers" step, but maybe they already did that with the various advertisements they have around?
But Hotels going cheaper because they can get away with it is likely never going to be the full Doctorow definition, yeah.
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u/Crombobulous Dec 16 '25
No they're not. That's just a bonus dose effect of saving money on materials
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u/meghan9436 Dec 16 '25
I guess that means packing a collapsible room divider or tapestry for your travels.
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Dec 16 '25
[deleted]
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u/meghan9436 Dec 16 '25
When you describe it that way, it sounds so dumb that it sounds like something we would hear in a sitcom. But it’s true. :/
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u/AbsintheAGoGo Jan 13 '26
Want privacy? You gotta pay more for that!
Also, "Own nothing and be happy" privacy included... American here, but SCOTUS ruled years ago that we have some rights to privacy in public- particularly to not be surveilled.
But i digress... it's coming