You're missing where these "businesses" are not trying to operate a profitable business. They are trying to raise money and generate rides.
None of them operate an actual infrastructure to speak of. They outsource people to gather the damned things up, charge them and put them back out. Some hire repair people but then you have tons of reports of them breaking half while being ridden or the breaks locking or whatever.
These are not airlines and they don't care if you crack your skull being thrown into a pole much less about "recycling parts" or whatever to keep costs down. It's someone else's money after all.
Also, you're missing the part where people tear them apart and sell the pieces because they are just laying all over the place.
Whether or not something is "useful" doesn't take into account the ridiculousness of this business model.
These things just showed up in Atlanta, dumped wherever they pleased on the sidewalk or in the right of way, blocking sidewalks or whatever. Sensible cities rounded the damnable things up and didn't give them back until rules were in place for them. Here they are "banned" from the sidewalks, except that everyone rides them on the sidewalk because the undermanned police department doesn't have the time or inclination to enforce the rules.
Did the morons on the city council bother to think, well if these people who PAY ZERO taxes to Atlanta are going to just pile shit all over our sidewalks, make us pass rules on their use that maybe they should be charged per ride or in some way to reflect the cost of enforcement that goes along with having them scattered all over the city.
I'm not allowed to just go out on the sidewalk and operate a business without a license and leave business "property" laying around where the fuck ever and neither would you be and these stupid scooter companies should contribute to the tax base where they operate if they are going to stay in business. Not even Uber and Lyft get away without their drivers paying gas tax, car tag taxes, car insurance and whatnot.
If they just parked a bunch of cars anywhere and everywhere without tags, without paying car insurance and "renting" them to people with 100% liability landing on the "renter", the cars would and should be impounded. Just because it's a scooter and not a car doesn't mean you get to dump it wherever you want because someone with a phone finds it "useful".
Yeah, like the sidewalks in cities where you don't have a business presence or pay any appreciable amount of taxes. Or contribute to the public hospitals where the uninsured "customers" end up when they get thrown into a pole by a pothole or a "software glitch" locking the brakes.
When you leave your "things" laying everywhere all over a city in people's way, then don't expect them to be treated with "respect".
These fucking things don't serve any purpose other than to raise venture capital. They literally cannot be ridden by handicapped or elderly people who might need an assist and everyone else who uses them could get where they need to by WALKING.
Did the author stop to consider that they directly list "repair costs". Maybe, just maybe, when a scooter is taken out of circulation for repair, then put back in, that it is assigned a new ID number?
Yes, that could be possible. They could also assign your car a new VIN number and tag number every time you take it in for repair. The thing is, that depending on which fly by night operator you're talking about, there isn't a lot done in the way of "repair" or regular maintenance. They wait til they break in half or throw someoone into the street when their brakes lock to "repair" them, by which I assume means "junk them".
There would be ZERO reason for doing that and based on my observation of thousands of the things around my neighborhood, they mostly go unused, seem to break frequently and seem to appear periodically in waves of brand new ones (unless you also think they repaint and polish them along with renumbering them) just so we can all believe in the magical money fairy of throwing shitty scooters all over every sidewalk in every city that allows it is going to make money because "apps".
It also ignores the fact that there are 3 or 4 of these companies around raising money and throwing scooters and bikes all over the place to the point where the number of uses per vehicle is fairly low.
Yeah but but but.. you can't just leave your bicycle anywhere in front of anyone's house and flagrantly ride it on the sidewalk even after it has been made illegal to do so.
Besides no business that isn't run via an app on a phone is viable.
Also. Uber also has delightfully hideous orange rental bikes. Probably should up that IPO price to $200 billion...
Both Bird and Lime should know this data already themselves and yet they're still jumping into markets (ergo losing more money that they'll never recoup).
Either both companies have moronic leadership or there's some other scam going on. That includes all the weird (and oddly almost always negative) attention in the press these things get.
How long has Uber been bleeding a billion dollars a quarter?
It makes sense because the end game is to sell the money losing business at a profit to the unwitting public in an IPO.
You know, like Uber, that is supposedly going public with $120 billion valuation all the while losing $4 billion a year.
Unfortunately for these scooter companies, I don't think their total sales will ever scale like Uber and people might think twice about buying a rental service that tries to charge people to replace walking.
Oh do please bring this to Atlanta where apparently the City Council's ONLY data point regarding whether to allow these abominations to be scattered all over the commons is that "people have ridden them X times".
I had a lengthy email back and forth with my city councilman asking about cost-benefit analysis, how the city was going to pay for the "enforcement" of the new rules they passed, and what I got back was "i support them because if you ask the people who ride them, they like them".
I pointed out that if you polled cocaine or heroin users you would likely get similar statistics so why did we not just legalize those too.
I then asked what the city would do if I bought 1000 drink vending machines, put them on wheels and scattered them all over the city so that by using a phone app and moving the machine to a new location, you could buy a drink. Of course we all know the answer to that - the city would have impounded them all and fined my business.
So now these eyesores are apparently legal in Atlanta, because "people use them" and because we charge each company something less than the cost of a single emergency room visit generated by an uninsured ride. No allowance made for enforcement officers, not attempts to enforce the rules.
As long as you can dump the cost on the taxpayers, why not let people put hideous crap all over the city that provides no utility that cannot be had by walking.. with or without rental shoes.
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing where these "businesses" are not trying to operate a profitable business. They are trying to raise money and generate rides. None of them operate an actual infrastructure to speak of. They outsource people to gather the damned things up, charge them and put them back out. Some hire repair people but then you have tons of reports of them breaking half while being ridden or the breaks locking or whatever. These are not airlines and they don't care if you crack your skull being thrown into a pole much less about "recycling parts" or whatever to keep costs down. It's someone else's money after all. Also, you're missing the part where people tear them apart and sell the pieces because they are just laying all over the place.
Whether or not something is "useful" doesn't take into account the ridiculousness of this business model. These things just showed up in Atlanta, dumped wherever they pleased on the sidewalk or in the right of way, blocking sidewalks or whatever. Sensible cities rounded the damnable things up and didn't give them back until rules were in place for them. Here they are "banned" from the sidewalks, except that everyone rides them on the sidewalk because the undermanned police department doesn't have the time or inclination to enforce the rules. Did the morons on the city council bother to think, well if these people who PAY ZERO taxes to Atlanta are going to just pile shit all over our sidewalks, make us pass rules on their use that maybe they should be charged per ride or in some way to reflect the cost of enforcement that goes along with having them scattered all over the city. I'm not allowed to just go out on the sidewalk and operate a business without a license and leave business "property" laying around where the fuck ever and neither would you be and these stupid scooter companies should contribute to the tax base where they operate if they are going to stay in business. Not even Uber and Lyft get away without their drivers paying gas tax, car tag taxes, car insurance and whatnot. If they just parked a bunch of cars anywhere and everywhere without tags, without paying car insurance and "renting" them to people with 100% liability landing on the "renter", the cars would and should be impounded. Just because it's a scooter and not a car doesn't mean you get to dump it wherever you want because someone with a phone finds it "useful".
Yeah, like the sidewalks in cities where you don't have a business presence or pay any appreciable amount of taxes. Or contribute to the public hospitals where the uninsured "customers" end up when they get thrown into a pole by a pothole or a "software glitch" locking the brakes. When you leave your "things" laying everywhere all over a city in people's way, then don't expect them to be treated with "respect". These fucking things don't serve any purpose other than to raise venture capital. They literally cannot be ridden by handicapped or elderly people who might need an assist and everyone else who uses them could get where they need to by WALKING.
Did the author stop to consider that they directly list "repair costs". Maybe, just maybe, when a scooter is taken out of circulation for repair, then put back in, that it is assigned a new ID number?
Yes, that could be possible. They could also assign your car a new VIN number and tag number every time you take it in for repair. The thing is, that depending on which fly by night operator you're talking about, there isn't a lot done in the way of "repair" or regular maintenance. They wait til they break in half or throw someoone into the street when their brakes lock to "repair" them, by which I assume means "junk them". There would be ZERO reason for doing that and based on my observation of thousands of the things around my neighborhood, they mostly go unused, seem to break frequently and seem to appear periodically in waves of brand new ones (unless you also think they repaint and polish them along with renumbering them) just so we can all believe in the magical money fairy of throwing shitty scooters all over every sidewalk in every city that allows it is going to make money because "apps". It also ignores the fact that there are 3 or 4 of these companies around raising money and throwing scooters and bikes all over the place to the point where the number of uses per vehicle is fairly low.
Yeah but but but.. you can't just leave your bicycle anywhere in front of anyone's house and flagrantly ride it on the sidewalk even after it has been made illegal to do so. Besides no business that isn't run via an app on a phone is viable. Also. Uber also has delightfully hideous orange rental bikes. Probably should up that IPO price to $200 billion...
Both Bird and Lime should know this data already themselves and yet they're still jumping into markets (ergo losing more money that they'll never recoup). Either both companies have moronic leadership or there's some other scam going on. That includes all the weird (and oddly almost always negative) attention in the press these things get.
How long has Uber been bleeding a billion dollars a quarter? It makes sense because the end game is to sell the money losing business at a profit to the unwitting public in an IPO. You know, like Uber, that is supposedly going public with $120 billion valuation all the while losing $4 billion a year. Unfortunately for these scooter companies, I don't think their total sales will ever scale like Uber and people might think twice about buying a rental service that tries to charge people to replace walking.
Oh do please bring this to Atlanta where apparently the City Council's ONLY data point regarding whether to allow these abominations to be scattered all over the commons is that "people have ridden them X times". I had a lengthy email back and forth with my city councilman asking about cost-benefit analysis, how the city was going to pay for the "enforcement" of the new rules they passed, and what I got back was "i support them because if you ask the people who ride them, they like them". I pointed out that if you polled cocaine or heroin users you would likely get similar statistics so why did we not just legalize those too. I then asked what the city would do if I bought 1000 drink vending machines, put them on wheels and scattered them all over the city so that by using a phone app and moving the machine to a new location, you could buy a drink. Of course we all know the answer to that - the city would have impounded them all and fined my business. So now these eyesores are apparently legal in Atlanta, because "people use them" and because we charge each company something less than the cost of a single emergency room visit generated by an uninsured ride. No allowance made for enforcement officers, not attempts to enforce the rules. As long as you can dump the cost on the taxpayers, why not let people put hideous crap all over the city that provides no utility that cannot be had by walking.. with or without rental shoes.