[IncRnd]

I doubt it truly is profitable for Bird, which most likely is paying out from VC cash not from their own revenue cash.

This model is an inversion of tool or car rental, where the renter returns the device or pays a late fee. Here, Bird chases after you to get their devices back. When scooters are difficult to recover, Bird pays more to the finder for recovering them.

Bird almost certainly plans to sell themselves at some point through some sort of offering in the future. Renting scooters today is just an incidental.