[steadicat]

Operating a scooter service was not illegal at the time. It was only made illegal as a retaliatory response. SFMTA and the supervisors would have liked those companies to proactively ask for permission, hence the retaliation. Skip is the only company (AFAIK) that made it a point to ask for permission first – and they’re getting rewarded for it – but I’m pretty sure they only did that with the benefit of hindsight. They were late to the game, saw the backlash against the early players, and saw that as their opportunity.

[eridius]

This is not true. AIUI the SFMTA told these companies that they were working on regulations governing these scooters and that they couldn't deploy them yet. Then one of the companies (I forget who) jumped the gun and deployed them anyway, so the others rushed out to deploy them too.

I don't know if this was strictly illegal, but it was certainly flaunting explicit instructions from the SFMTA.

[rrix2]

> I forget who

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/san-francisco-will-regulat...

ISTR it was Lime, and this article from March seems to back that up. The other two launched shortly after because they were afraid to lose first-mover benefits. Woopsie.