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Driverless Car Hype Gives Way To E-Scooter Mania Among Technorati (nbcnews.com)
Millions of dollars in funding and billions of dollars in valuations have made scooters the next big thing since the last big thing. From a report: When Michael Ramsey, an analyst for technology research firm Gartner, started in February to put together his 2018 "hype cycle" report for the future of transportation, he had plenty of topics to choose from: electric vehicles, flying cars, 5G, blockchain, and, of course, autonomous vehicles. But one type of transportation is conspicuously absent from the results of the report: electric scooters. "At the time, outside of California, these scooters were really not that common," Ramsey said. "That's how much has happened." As for autonomous vehicles, which have enjoyed years of hype as the next big thing, Ramsey labeled them sliding into "the trough of disillusionment," which Ramsey described as "when expectations don't meet the truth."
In a matter of months, electric scooter startups have gone from tech oddity to global phenomenon. In some cities, hundreds of scooters suddenly showed up on streets from companies including Bird and Lime, leaving municipalities to figure out how to handle the sudden influx of two-wheeled travelers. The concept behind the scooters is simple: A user can grab any available scooter, unlock it with an app, ride to their destination, and leave the scooter there for someone else to use. Even by the hyper-growth expectations of Silicon Valley, the rise of scooter companies has been dizzying. Scooters can be found in more than 125 cities in the U.S. and more than 10 across the globe. In the year after their launch, both Lime and Bird said their scooters had been used for more than 10 million rides.
In a matter of months, electric scooter startups have gone from tech oddity to global phenomenon. In some cities, hundreds of scooters suddenly showed up on streets from companies including Bird and Lime, leaving municipalities to figure out how to handle the sudden influx of two-wheeled travelers. The concept behind the scooters is simple: A user can grab any available scooter, unlock it with an app, ride to their destination, and leave the scooter there for someone else to use. Even by the hyper-growth expectations of Silicon Valley, the rise of scooter companies has been dizzying. Scooters can be found in more than 125 cities in the U.S. and more than 10 across the globe. In the year after their launch, both Lime and Bird said their scooters had been used for more than 10 million rides.
suicide
nothing to see here - move along
they homeless are having a field day with them. It's pretty easy to yank off the GPS and walk off with them. The batteries have value as scrap too and there's plenty of shady recycling centers that don't ask questions.
This'll go away when the investor cash dries up and they'll be clogging landfills the world over.
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Technorati is a person who knows how to change a font to bold in Microsoft Word, according to old people.
You are an elite hacker because you have figured out how to post on Slashdot.
Don't really have much to say about the scooters themselves but it's really bizarre how they showed up almost overnight. I've read stories about some American cities bitching about them even here on /. but there wasn't a single shared scooter here (city in central Europe).
Occasionally you'd see some dork ride an electric scooter or one of those unicycles and even those were pretty rare. I went away for three weeks on vacation, and when I got back they're all over the place.
One thing I've noticed before though is that a lot of successful local startups are essentially clones of what's been tried before in the US. One of a major and oldest companies here is a clone of Yahoo, there is also a clone of Groupon, and so on. I'm not really sure how financially successful these scooter companies are, but somebody is probably making money so this might've been a decent opportunity.
I don't see this as lasting very long--haven't we already seen an article about a city banning these things? And my first run-in with one was with somebody who was of the definite opinion that "I am on an electric scooter!" means that they automatically have right of way over everybody & do not have to obey the traffic rules. (I admittedly don't know which set applies, but I'm going to bet that you won't go wrong by assuming that the ones that apply to bikes apply to scooters, powered or not.)
I'm not advocating for it or anything, but...if you have a significant percentage of people using these things being idiots and assholes, it's going to only be a matter of time until they either get banned or start requiring a license to use. I don't particularly care, though; I'm just gonna kick back and enjoy the show.
Every one I see on a sidewalk gets tossed by me.
1. You can't just leave your shit in the middle of the sidewalk. That's called littering.
2. You can't operate a business in the middle of the sidewalk. That's illegal in every municipality that I know of.
3. The really hurt disabled people, such as people in wheelchairs and the blind.
If I can, I just one foot underneath the middle of the things, and launch them somewhere else, out of the way. I'd put them in the trash, if it were worth my time.
I don't respond to AC's.
So wait, first it was driverless cars, now it is scooters that are hot...
Obvious next new hot trend: Autonomous Scooters.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
free batteries, charging systems, maybe sim cards, and some metal to sell as scrap. Yay makers
Mainly homosexuals in Silicon Valley who consider themselves the technological elites. Characterized primarily by the "soylent grin", dopey beards, and a slavish devotion to the latest techology trend, these "technorati" consider themselves to be the natural aristocratic class by virtue of their education and cushy tech sector jobs making important decisions about things like what color the buttons in "Generic Social Media App #11223" should be. Because of the nonsensically large salaries from their largely pointless jobs, they tend to have a certain sense of guilt for their entirely unearned privilege and as a consequence tend to espouse "socialist" political views through which they imagine they will a) assuage their upper middle class white guilt, and b) be the controlling elite in the future Socialist Utopia. Both of these are patently untrue as they, too, will be murdered unceremoniously by the third-world proletarians they advocate importing en masse and whom they believe ought to inherit the country.
To summarize, a technorati is a self-absorbed Silicon Valley elitist. See also: futurist, technologist, narcissism, hubris.
If I can, I just one foot underneath the middle of the things, and launch them somewhere else, out of the way.
Where is more out of the way than they are? I've usually seem them propped against posts or buildings, standing up so they are not taking up much walking space.
If you "launch it with a foot" it will land on it's side - either on the sidewalk, or on the street, or maybe into a side of a car. There is no scenario I can see where tossing the thing several feet results in better placement, in fact all possibilities after landing seem quite a lot worse and more like actual littering.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm guessing that this infatuation with scooters will end very quickly in many cities once there's snow and ice on the roads.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Technorati is the name of a business that got bought out in 2016 and got shut down. Did Google type stuff.
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