TL;DR

No, you don’t actually provide that much value to the Japanese music industry when you go to a concert in Japan. You don’t actually spend that much money. They don’t want you, not because they’re racist or xenophobic, but because to their music industry, you do the equivalent of ordering a $2 taco at a Mexican restaurant and filling up on chips. You simply aren’t built into the current monetization of the JP music market. They don’t make money through ticket sales, they make money through you buying CDs and merch.

CD and Physical Goods Sales

To understand the music industry in Japan, we must start our story in Sacramento. More specifically, a small record shop in Sacramento called Tower Records. Russell Solomon founded Tower Records in the 1960s, and it eventually grew to become the dominant record and music store in the USA. The Tower in the Tower Theater was named after the nearby Tower Theatre (still the oldest continuously running “Picture Palace”), which was named after the Tower Bridge, a historic Sacramento bridge linking the floodplains of West Sacramento to Old Sacramento and the capitol proper.

Shibuya is one of those places that you just have to go to in Japan. It’s a Tokyo staple, and if you’re a weeaboo it’s most likely one of the first places that you’ll go to. Down one of the streets of Shibuya, you’ll find a giant multifloor building. That’s the mecca of Japanese music, Tower Records, the flagship store. You’ve done it, you’ve reached your dreams, you’ve come to the largest music shop in the world, 9 whole floors of Japanese music and culture. You see the giant yellow tower on the front of the building. And yes that is the Tower Bridge in Sacramento, California.

Tower Records was an icon in the music world for decades, but is now dead. It filed for bankruptcy in 2006. Part of the reason for the decline in business was the rise of mass market discounters, but also the advent of the internet and early internet piracy made access to music easier. At this point, DSL had made it fairly instantaneous. Youtube started a year earlier at this point, and with Youtube immediately ripped music from CDs was uploaded online. Limewire was already more or less mainstream if you had internet.

But there’s another place where Tower Records still lives. And that’s Japan. If you’ve ever gone on JP Twitter, you’ve seen the attitudes that they have towards piracy. Don’t copy that floppy, you dirty thief! To this day, there are still dozens of Tower Records stores in Japan. Travel protip: you don’t really have to go to the Shibuya location by the way, the other locations will still probably have your stuff, but honestly it’s much easier just to ship things from amazon.co.jp to your hotel room.

But when was the last time you went to a CD or record shop in the west? Sure if you’re a hip and trendy zoomer with a digicam and wired earbuds and a matcha you’ll performatively buy a CD or a record from a mom and pop store, but how much money do you spend as a part of your income or net worth on these goods?

We in the west, or at least America, consume our day-to-day music through streaming. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has numbers for this, with the breakdown: the vast majority (85%-90%) of revenue comes from streaming, not physical media. The streaming market mogs the physical media market. No way Tower Records would survive here.

However, for one reason or another, whether it’s social or cultural or just an older way of doing things that I don’t know enough to go into, physical media is well and alive in Japan. If you’ve been on the internet long enough you would remember the stacks of AKB CD’s in the trash, bought on the hopes of a handshake ticket. You can pull up similar reports from the RIAJ (The RIAA but for Japan) and other sources, but current estimates show that most day-to-day revenue from music consumption is around a 60/40 physical/digital split. Japan is perhaps the world’s largest physical music market. Tower Records is still going strong.

Scale vs Depth

The core of the issue is that Japan’s music industry and the western music industry have different incentives. Here’s what I mean.

At some point, you can grow an entertainment industry in two ways. You can go either broad or you can go deep.

Western artists rely deeply on streaming revenue from Spotify or Youtube Music or Amazon Music or whatever else people use these days. You have revenue per play, and you have monthly unique listens or downloads. You have Spotify charts. This is important!

While Japan has been getting into the streaming business recently, it’s still at this point a smaller percentage of revenue than physical music media. They rely heavily on IRL stuff, folks going to Tower Records to buy CDs.

The incentives are different. You don’t make money in the USA by getting people to buy your CDs, you get money in the USA by hype. You get it through attention of the masses; after all, the more listens the better. You want as many streams and clicks as possible on your Spotify because for every click you get some amount of fee. But in Japan, what do you want? You want people to whale on your CDs. You want them to spend tons of money on your other merch and records. Whether it’s a better model or not is up for debate, but it is what it is. Streaming is important, yes, but get people to buy the CD’s and records.

Keep that in mind, because it’s important for how concerts are perceived and why Japan’s model is what it is.

Ticketing Markets

So far, we’ve only talked about revenue from music consumption on a day-to-day basis, or how the money flows from the music enjoyer to the music producer. Concerts are another deal.

The parties involved in the transactions within the US concert ecosystem are numerous, with each middleman wanting to take their cut. But let’s just talk about the supply and demand aspect of shows in the US. For the purposes of this blogpost let’s refer to them as lives. We all talk about how evil Ticketmaster or Stubhub or AXS or whatever is, but let’s define them as what they are: they’re market makers that attempt to match supply of tickets or seats to demand for those tickets or seats. The main problem with this is that supply is relatively more finite to demand, and as we’ve become more of an interconnected entity regarding similar tastes in music, demand can completely outstrip supply and drive the price up at a rate faster than linearly. AKA Taylor Swift has millions of fans around the US (and world), but she can only have so many concerts as she is only one person. Thus, her supply is significantly more finite than the amount of demand, even within a single city of her Eras tour, driving up nosebleed tickets to many hundreds or thousands of dollars. The average price paid was, I believe, around $700.

But how much were ticket prices in Japan for Taylor’s Eras tour? Around $140 for SS seats. So why the discrepancy? Logically, it would make sense for it to be at least a little bit more, as Swift is an international superstar. So why is that so?

The difference is in the markets.

The US concert market increasingly behaves like a financialized speculative market, where tickets are not just admission to the concert but tradable assets whose prices discover market-clearing demand. Secondary markets create liquidity almost to a fault, where tickets are exchanged willy nilly at free market rates and speculative arbitrage is normalized and even encouraged (well I don’t have a problem with it personally, at least!) You can make big money by buying that ticket, and if you can’t go, sell it later! The ticket itself is a real-time monetized asset that’s dynamically priced by the market maker, like flights booked with Southwest points that you cancel once prices drop. Additional value is captured through fees across day-to-day trades of the asset!

However, Japan essentially (not totally, but they do it really well) blocks this market mechanism. There is (pretty much) no secondary market for tickets, and there is no auction. Many live shows are done via lottery, where you enter for a chance to win, but if you win, the prices are more or less reasonable. Your seats may even be completely random within a section as well. Either you win, or you don’t, and you accept the results. Sure, there are ways around that, such as applying for multiple tickets, but from a pure social perspective, it can be considered a more equitable method of finding well-deserved butts to seats. After all, the folks who can often pay the most aren’t usually the ones who are the biggest fans of the artist. The main problem is this: if JP suppresses speculative resale and market-clearing ticket prices, how does the industry capture all the additional value that could have been extracted from the ticket as an asset?

But more importantly, why care who the biggest fans of the artist are? Why aren’t we optimizing here for pure economic profit, Japan? Who really cares who gets to see your show?

In the west, there are huge amounts of value captured by promoters, Ticketmaster, on these transactions. The artist does, to an extent, care that their fans fill seats with butts, and cannot actually raise the face prices of the tickets without pissing off the fans. But then, how do we ensure proper allocation of resources across the market? Thus, we have the fall guy, the secondary market maker, to take the blame. We all hate Ticketmaster, right? It’s about preserving the image of the artist.

But, suppose a secondary market cannot exist legally, as in Japan. What would the proper pricing to match butts to seats be? Could Taylor charge $700 a ticket at face value? No! Her JP fans who expect $100 tickets would seek to Twitter and complain! So Taylor leaves money on the table. And so do Love Live or Im@s or Momoclo or Mrs Green Apple or anyone else.

So is Japan just bad at extracting willingness-to-pay? Where does all that spending power that’s on the table go? Well, it’s captured elsewhere in the fandom.

Value Capture

We in the west treat the concert itself as a monetizable scarce asset. The show is the company, and the ticket price is its share price. The Spotify or Youtube Music price is fixed, and the product is infinitely reproducible, so it’s not scarce. It doesn’t mean anything to have the CDs anymore. Concerts are where willingness-to-pay gets aggressively extracted and distributed to producers, platforms, scalpers, and middlemen.

Japan’s incentives for concerts are different. With the majority of revenue still coming from physical goods, there’s less pressure to extract every last dollar of willingness-to-pay from the live itself. Instead, fans can dump that remaining spending power into CDs, merch, fan clubs, acrylics, collectibles, and the rest of the ecosystem. The Japanese concert ecosystem is designed (or organically came to be?) to be a catalyst for consumer spending across the artist’s products, and the value is captured long-term through deepening fandoms and increased spend through physical goods and other associated products instead of the concert itself, and the fandoms and spend eventually reinforce each other. Lives are special little treats for the fans, reaffirmation rituals acting as retention mechanisms for current fans and conversion mechanisms for new ones.

Who do we blame?

As to which system captures value more equitably or efficiently, I don’t really know and can’t speak to that. However, it’s important to understand that concerts serve different purposes in the US vs Japan.

Why doesn’t Japan transition to America’s model? Surely if there’s a third-party market maker like Ticketmaster then people can blame their lack of access due to overwhelming demand on the market maker instead of on the producer, right? The main reason is that it’s kind of just illegal to do it, but the reasoning I think (at least my personal opinion) is that it feels better to leave the ticketing gods to RNG. If you don’t get in, it wasn’t meant to be, and oh well! Next time! The venue can only be a certain size after all, we get it.

There are other benefits to their model. Instead of scalpers or market makers capturing that remaining willingness-to-pay through resale, their deeply loyal fans can spend it on hundreds of dollars of CDs instead. Penlights, can badges, fan clubs, acrylics, oshikatsu, whatever else - the money (in theory) will go into the ecosystem anyway, and long term good will is generated. In the end, the money is not just left on the table; some or most of it just enters elsewhere.

Think of the $1.50 Costco hotdog (180 yen in JP). No way they’re earning money on that Costco hotdog. But that’s fine, because you’ll go in and spend money on some dumb stuff that you didn’t need. But more importantly, you’re thankful for Jim Sinegal for an environment where you can get a hotdog for $1.50. Costco shoppers are some of the most loyal shoppers out there, and once you’re a Costco shopper, unless you move out of the area, you’re most likely a Costco shopper for life. It’s the JP fandom way. You’re into Im@s for 20 years, and you dress up your kids in Im@s, and you’re a producer for life!

However, if we applied the JP ticketing system to western audiences, there’s no similar money sink that fans can dump their extra money into! They aren’t going to buy CD’s - who do you know still has a CD player who isn’t performative or a boomer? Spotify only costs a certain amount a month, so does Youtube or whatever, and the companies themselves and all the other parties take a cut out of that anyway. So the concerts need to capture the willingness-to-pay! Otherwise, it just never gets monetized! Sure, they might be long-term fans, but who cares? There is no Costco for them to shop in so you have to raise the price of that hotdog to $8 to capture their money.

I’m not saying the Japanese system is better than the west’s. In fact, I think it is often worse. I’d personally much rather have Ticketmaster than chuusen.

Building Scarcity

These are more or less my opinions, but I believe that as concerts nowadays are a form of participating in luxury activities and developing caste in one way or another with regards to your position in the fandom is important to the experience. And what is more luxurious than scarcity? It’s all about scarcity.

The key is differentiation, JP builds scarcity by products, the west does it by price.

Posting about something is akin to proving your worth, and in the US, the biggest fans are the ones who go to concerts. In JP the biggest fans are the ones who have the most merch, the ones who perform oshikatsu, the ones who buy all the CDs and are in the fan club, and have the most acrylics and can badges on their itabag. Because in Japan, if you didn’t get concerts, it’s “oh well, what can I do?”

Why the Japanese Market doesn’t care to make it easier to foreigners

Simply put, you don’t really spend that much on goods.

“Well, I buy my idol CD’s every time from Mandarake.” The artist and the music industry do not capture the value from resale markets.

“Well I contribute towards Japan’s economy through flights, hotel stays, etc.” The artist and the music industry do not care. Sure, it’s great for the taxpayers, but Pony Canyon doesn’t care (well, as much)

Every spot a foreigner takes up in a domestic JP live is a lost opportunity to retain a loyal domestic fan or convert a new JP fan who will then proceed to generate revenue for the artist for a long time through merch and other purchases. Costco doesn’t want you to access their food court if you’re not a member or you aren’t going to ever be one because you don’t live in a place near a Costco.

It’s not that they don’t want your money; you’re just not integrated into the monetization loop and if you aren’t, then they aren’t going to cater to you.

Is this good?

No, but it’s the way they do things. There are existing networks of scale that US artists and promoters and groups can leverage to capture more value in concerts that I imagine JP artists are able to, so it’s probably extra hard to do business here. I don’t really know too much about the percentages of revenue and kickbacks that Swift gets from her shows but it’s probably more than what Love Live would be able to get at Levi Stadium.

What can US fans do

Nothing really, JP might switch to more streaming platforms and less of a physical merch ecosystem but who really knows? But I don’t think complaining at them will do anything because they really don’t have an incentive (well, that they recognize) to make JP stuff available worldwide.

One of the main issues with merch and physical goods is that they don’t actually have amazing margins, and that it’s well, physical. You have to make it, you have to transfer it, you have to have it in shops or online, or available at events. If you’ve ever done buppan at a live you know it’s an absolute bear. The logistics of doing that at overseas events and capturing enough overseas monetization is not, well, great.

So there’s not much incentive to make the process easier for you. Some folks do it, like for instance Holo, but as Cover has expanded internationally already, it makes more sense for them. But for more niche stuff, lol.

I think the best way is probably to just more Spotify listens & Twitter follows lol.

Singapore’s remarkable success as a nation is often humorously attributed by Lee Kuan Yew to the invention of the air conditioner. While it may start as a joke, there’s truth to it. Singapore has distinguished itself from its Southeast Asian neighbors by presenting itself as a first-world nation, in part thanks to the comfort provided by air conditioning. This ability to offer a conducive work environment attracted investments and opportunities, transforming it from a nation with dirt roads and few resources into a global business powerhouse. Given its limited natural resources, Singapore had to leverage its human capital and strategic location. Without air conditioning, the extreme heat and humidity would have made a productive work environment nearly impossible.

In the United States, we have our own success story: Silicon Valley. This region is often envied worldwide for its innovation and significant contributions to the American economy. Discussions about replicating its ecosystem of innovation frequently mention factors such as deregulation, access to funding, and even the weather. However, one essential element is often overlooked: the garage.

Many of us casually reference the fact that companies like HP, Disney, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon “started in a garage,” but we rarely reflect on what that truly signifies. Would these companies have emerged without garages? I believe not.

Before Silicon Valley became synonymous with software, it was a hub for hardware development, which is reflected in its name. Building hardware requires a dedicated workspace. While one could use a living room or apartment, the nature of hardware development—often messy and requiring specialized equipment—makes a garage a more suitable option. Indoor soldering generates fumes, lab equipment can damage home furnishings, and external weather conditions can be unpredictable. A garage provides a clean, accessible space for experimentation and innovation without the constraints of a rented warehouse, which can be costly.

For many, a garage is an underappreciated asset. It serves as an ideal workspace—a mini-warehouse connected to your home, customizable and equipped for a variety of tasks. It can house power tools, CNC machines, and other equipment, acting simultaneously as a manufacturing center and a shipping hub. The convenience of working with friends or neighbors nearby enhances collaboration, while climate control is as simple as opening the garage doors.

Garages became popular in the 1920s with the rise of automobile ownership and boomed in the post-World War II suburban expansion. The standardization of homes kept prices low, while the growing demand for cars necessitated storage space, leading to the creation of garages. These spaces allowed homeowners to maintain their vehicles and store tools without cluttering their living areas.

In America, garages have naturally fostered innovation. They offer a sheltered environment where individuals can create and experiment freely, equipped with the tools they need. This contrasts sharply with Singapore’s emphasis on air conditioning, which arose from its hot, resource-scarce environment. While air conditioning supports a thriving office culture, America benefits from its mild climate and ample land, making garages a practical solution for innovators.

Without garages, our landscape of innovation would look very different. Urban settings often limit opportunities for creation, forcing individuals to work in their living rooms, which can detract from quality of life. This issue is evident in the divide between San Francisco and the broader Bay Area, where tech hubs favor software development over hardware production.

Ultimately, the key to America’s growth lies in its garages. If other countries aspire to emulate our success, they should consider building single-family homes with attached garages as a foundational step.

There are two main criticisms of AI art (that is, not on the effects of AI in art, but rather the art itself) - AI art sucks and can’t draw hands or cannot replicate the technique of a human artist, and also AI art lacks ‘soul’ or ‘emotion’ as Art is something sacred to be created by Humans.

“AI art sucks. It can’t draw hands. Look at the line around this character and the inconsistent shading. AI will never be able to replicate the delicate detail around the eyes.”

But the artist community most upset about AI art is not one that will criticize their own on the technical merits of their work. The detachment from technical ability and the value of the artwork is emphasized the most in artist communities which abhor AI generated artwork. Support is given to even the most rookie of artists, and technical merit is downplayed in favor of the content of the artwork, the character of the artist, and the story of the journey itself. In essence, the detractors of AI artwork’s technical merit are themselves, not applying the same criticism to human artwork. This is most likely a byproduct of over-socialization; ‘don’t say anything you wouldn’t want said to you’. Those who throw themselves so deeply into their passion are often the ones who take criticism the worst, and so often produce mediocre work as they take offense to anyone who suggests changes, and with these True Believers at the core of their movement, any movement that does not embrace the value of negative feedback stagnates and creates a safe, but mediocre, space, one devoid of the cycle of failure and improvement.

“AI has no soul and is emotionless as it is not created by a Human. Look at this generic, bland photo. There’s nothing behind it”

The predication of emotion and soul existing behind a piece of artwork means that there is some sort of human element that cannot be duplicated by machine. It renders the technical ability of the work only a medium by which to convey some sort of story or emotional feeling, something the proponents of such a criticism feel AI lacks. Humans are to Art as God is to Humans, and as only God can create Humans, only Humans can create Art. A good argument nonetheless for True Believers. But do those who criticize AI art on this basis themselves believe they were created from randomness, from evolution? The disconnect between believing they themselves were a part of Nature’s Evolutionary Learning Algorithm and the ability for themselves play God to Art is something of a mental gymnastics optimization problem.

Not only are the two most dominant criticisms against AI generated art in contradiction to each other, they’re in contradiction to the criticizer’s own beliefs. No wonder they’re so unhappy.

So what should you do if you don’t like AI art? How do you avoid being unhappy by creating unrealistic mental models for trying to justify human created artwork? How CAN you launch criticisms against it?

By simply not.

Just complain that it’s taking your jobs!

Coal miners complained about the technical aspects of solar, they complained about the aesthetics and the ecological impact and the economic impact, but none of those did anything to them. In the end the they just became solar installers.

Technology from an economic perspective exists to expand the Production Possibility Frontier by keeping L (labor) and K (capital) consistent, or rather to reduce L and K while keeping PPF consistent. It’s here to take everyone’s jobs so people can move onto different things. Unless significant demand is induced, L and K will and should shrink while production is kept constant in line with demand, and will result in a lower cost.

Technology comes for everyone, whether you’re an artist or a truck driver or a coal miner or a horsekeeper or a village shaman. Just complain about it!

“America stands divided.” But what’s the dividing line? Some might point to politics. Others may argue it’s ideology or even geography. Articles keep popping up, trying to dissect the “Two Americas” at their core, but they often overlook the intricate web of interconnecting cultures, policies, demographics, and environments that fuel this division.

In the realm of science and research, we often seek to explain phenomena through causal studies. A correlational study just doesn’t pack the same punch as a causal one. No one’s rushing to publish your work until they grasp why that correlation exists. The pressure to overfit our models can be overwhelming. However, instead of trying to pinpoint the root differences of the Two Americas, why not define them by their symptoms?

There indeed exist Two Americas. In one, you’ll find places, regions, towns, and cities where public bathrooms are as plentiful as they are free. Need to relieve yourself? It’s a no-brainer; just step into a McDonald’s or Starbucks, and you’re good to go – no secret code, no purchase required. The restrooms might not be pristine, sure; there could be water puddles around the sink, and the toilet paper might be of the single-ply variety, but hey, it’s free. You’re free to do your business without interaction or inquiry. You can sip from your gym bag’s water bottle without a second thought, munch away, and carry on with your day, unburdened by thoughts of tummy discomfort or mapping out the nearest public restroom in a park using Google Maps. Restrooms are so ubiquitous in your life that you don’t even think twice about them.

Now, shift your gaze to the other America, where public restrooms aren’t so charitable. Need to go? Brace yourself for a strategic operation. You might plan your restroom breaks around establishments where you’re a paying customer. You could find yourself holding it in until lunchtime, forgoing that water bottle in your bag, or opting for a lighter meal to avoid the inevitable restroom hunt. Sometimes, you’ll spot a McDonald’s or Starbucks, only to discover that their restrooms are exclusively for paying patrons. In such moments, you reluctantly purchase a coffee just to score a restroom code. And when local laws mandate public restroom access, you might just encounter the “out of order” sign at the most inconvenient times.

The need to answer nature’s call is a universal one (unless you’re perpetually dehydrated). Yet, the barriers to doing so are all too familiar in the second America. Those in the first America hardly notice these challenges.

Now, consider this scenario: pluck a man from the First America and drop him into the Second America, and you’ve got a recipe for frustration. He’ll question why he can’t simply use a McDonald’s restroom without the prerequisite McChicken purchase. He’ll grumble about every closed restroom he stumbles upon. Nevertheless, he’ll adapt; he’ll ration his water intake and carry hand sanitizer for those sketchy park restrooms. It’ll be bewildering at first, but he’ll soldier on.

On the flip side, transplant a Second America resident into the First America, and brace for shock. They’ll raise an eyebrow at the sight of a clean, open McDonald’s restroom. Their initial confusion at the concept of freely accessible restrooms will fade as they gradually embrace the idea. Unconsciously, they’ll start drinking water more liberally, and while there might be some initial befuddlement, they’ll eventually find their footing.

The dichotomy between these two Americas isn’t just a matter of restroom availability; it’s also a reflection of the mindset ingrained in the citizens of each realm.

In the America blessed with abundant public restrooms, a sense of convenience and entitlement often prevails. People move about their daily lives without the burden of restroom-related worries. They hydrate without a second thought, snack whenever the urge strikes, and navigate their day without the constant awareness of the nearest bathroom’s location. This freedom from restroom constraints not only impacts daily routines but also influences attitudes towards consumption, hydration, and even the acceptance of discomfort. In this America, the notion of “freedom” extends beyond the political realm into the realm of bodily functions, where personal needs can be addressed without hesitation or constraint.

Contrastingly, the Second America, where public restrooms are scarce and often locked behind purchase barriers, fosters a mindset of restraint and calculation. Residents here must carefully plan their restroom breaks, consider their liquid intake, and strategize around meal times. The constant juggling act between hydration, nutrition, and the impending need for a restroom influences how they approach their daily routines. This mindset reinforces the idea that certain basic needs, like answering nature’s call, must be earned or planned for, and it often results in individuals unconsciously suppressing their physiological requirements to avoid inconvenience or embarrassment.

But more than anything, it reflects on the mindset of each person’s view of America as a whole. First America citizens see their America as a land of convenience and opportunity. They take great pride in their America. Second America citizens see their America as a land of inconvenience and struggle. They view their America with a lens of shame.

For citizens of the First America, their land is one of boundless pride. They take immense pride in the accessibility and freedom of their public restrooms, seeing them as emblematic of the American spirit – a land where convenience and liberty are paramount. In their eyes, this privilege extends beyond restroom access; it represents an entire way of life, where needs are met with ease, and obstacles are minimal. This perspective often translates into an unshakeable faith in the nation’s ability to overcome challenges and a sense of entitlement to the comforts of life.

Conversely, for citizens of the Second America, there’s often a sense of shame associated with their restroom predicament. They view their limited restroom access as emblematic of a broader systemic failure, where inequality and inequity loom large. They may carry a sense of embarrassment or even resentment towards a society that doesn’t ensure equal access to something as basic as a restroom. This shame can extend to their perception of the nation as a whole, seeing it as a place where fundamental needs are not universally guaranteed and where systemic issues persist.

These mindsets are self-fulfilling. In the First America, citizens take immense pride in their easy access to public restrooms. They take for granted things that should be taken for granted, and strive to make their America one where these things can continue to be taken for granted. Anything that attempts to reduce their access to free restrooms is an attack on their America. They live their lives with this freedom. So they work hard to maintain these freedom. They maintain order, cleanliness, civility, trust. They assert that people, like them, are good. They assume that people who use the public restroom are good. The thought of committing an act that removes these benefits for First America is disgusting and almost unimaginable.

In the Second America, the citizen feels helpless. They have to bend their lives to the powers which control the restrooms. Their entire lives are structured in a way where they are constantly reminded of their helplessness. This reduces their agency. They accept that their America will never have free restrooms, and live their lives under the control of the bathroom key. They accept that they will never have the free use toilets. They do not care about the maintenance of order, cleanliness, civility, or trust. They assume that there will be people who destroy these toilets, and assert that they can never be free due to the drugs and destruction that happens around them. If someone shoots up in a McDonalds bathroom, oh well - it’s just a fact of life.

This stark contrast in attitudes towards public restroom access fuels a spiral in each of the Americas. In the First America, any act of violence or disruption that threatens restroom accessibility is met with outrage and condemnation. However, in the Second America, similar actions often go unnoticed or are met with apathy. This glaring disparity in responses to public restroom-related crimes further deepens the divide between these Two Americas.

These Two Americas transcend rural and urban boundaries, racial and ethnic ties, and income levels. The availability of public restrooms in each America isn’t determined by a single causal factor but rather by a multitude of factors. However, more crucial than the actual availability of public restrooms is the reflection of the mentality of the residents in each America. It’s the contrast between a mentality of possibility and one of hopelessness that truly defines these that divide.