Good eye
...but I think the average person wouldn't have ever noticed. I do wonder how many people actually mixed up washers and dryers. Domestic front load pairs look identical and the popular thing to do these days is to add tinted portholes to both, which obscures what's going on inside.
At a laundromat it's a bit more obvious, you don't see water sloshing around in the big dryers but I'm sure there are a few laundromat owners out there with a story of someone putting soiled clothes and a few capfuls of detergent inside a dryer. "ooh, this washers CHEAP!!! Only 25 cents for 10 minutes!"