Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/25/surfer-bros-defend-bird-scoote.html
…
3 Likes
Bill & Ted reboot. Do it NOW.
6 Likes
All joking aside about these guys, it’s important to note that these kind of rental scooters are sometimes the only affordable form of independent transport for young people
5 Likes
Car share I get. Even bike share, as it’s genuinely difficult to drag bikes into tiny apartments and walk-ups. But scooter shares? Why not own? they’re small, easy to transport and store, take minimal juice to charge, and gracefully degrade into regular scooters…This seems like a weird place to remove the incentive for care by removing ownership. What’s next, skateboard share?
4 Likes
DM me your real name, HMSGoose. I just secured $72M in first-round venture capital for y̶o̶u̶r̶ our idea, “skateboard share.”
9 Likes
Sock Sharing; I’m working on the business plan already, “Socks ‘n’ Shares™”
2 Likes
What’s the complaint against scooter rentals. We just got these in my town, and I’m not sure why anyone would have a problem with them.
2 Likes
This particular business model tends to result in a lot of scooters littering public walkways and roadways with no one willing to take responsibility for them.
9 Likes
We get that too, but I guess that never really bothered me.
1 Like
I’m imagining something like the following… only with scooters.
8 Likes
We just got them where I live, and I’ve already almost been run down on the sidewalk twice, and found one blocking disabled access as recently as yesterday.
I don’t hate the idea, but the fact the businesses involved decided to cut costs by not having any sort of docking station or parking arrangements, and instead encourage people to just leave them wherever they stand. It’s particularly annoying where I live, because this is a very bike-heavy area, so there’s out-of-the-way parking areas for bikes, where someone could also leave a scooter, almost everywhere. And yet…
ETA: Since writing this four hours ago, I found one blocking the parking lot entrance to my workplace.
7 Likes
I’m imagining something like the following… only with bikes.
These things a super popular here in Austin. The only problem I can see is that no one is riding bikes anymore. The other problem is that Uber has gotten into to game and I loathe Uber.
1 Like
Those bike docks are really expensive, however.
I assume so, yeah. But the scooter solution of just leaving the hardware wherever is a significant negative externality (aka taking your problems and making them someone else’s problems)
I totally see why scooter startups wouldn’t want to invest in docks, but I’d say the city has a pretty strong interest in not having them litter their crap everywhere
Making money by creating a burden on everyone else is a quintessential dick move
5 Likes
The heroes America needs, but not the heroes America deserves.
2 Likes
I love my DIY e-bike conversion (faster and cheaper than commercial e-bikes). Currently I’m planning a DIY e-longboard, and the eventual goal is an electric motorcycle. (I know a guy who turned a broken-down Porche into an all-electric car.) But screw scooters; I still have my land paddle from a previous life.
I like the basic idea of scooter sharing, but the execution has been a late stage capitalism disaster.
3 Likes
