[tyopiuy]

Evidence their business model isn’t working out. Their scooters (along with all the other companies) have all but disappeared from my area, where they once littered the sidewalk.

Once you fall once or twice on these scooters, it’s hard to ride them again. Especially when it’s the scooter that’s broken, as is often the case. It’s a shrinking market base, consequently. They (Uber-Jump, Lime) should have given incentive by offering some kind of coupons after an accident, instead of declining all responsibility and sending you the terms you signed or ghosting their customers.

[rsuelzer]

I hope they fail. The sidewalks in Long Beach are a mess with these scooters. I see kids who are clearly not old enough to drive riding these things around, sometimes three on a scooter. Meanwhile the bike share program bikes now sit unused on the racks. This isn't replacing cars in my area, it is replacing exercise. The beach path is filled with these things, creating a real hazard since the exercise path is now a motorway.

[libraryatnight]

I only just became aware of how obnoxious these things are. We just took a trip to San Diego and stayed in the Gaslamp and these things are everywhere, from multiple companies. By early evening they're just dumped all over place, sometimes in piles. Then the people riding them are a hazard, if they're on the sidewalk they come around corners and almost cream pedestrians, if they ride in the street they almost get themselves killed driving like idiots in traffic.

I hope this trend goes away.

[sschueller]

They haven't learned it yet here (Switzerland). A new one from Berlin just showed up. Now we have Bird, Flash and Tier (both out of Berlin). Ironic since these scooters are illegal in Germany so they can't operate them in their own country.

Lime has bailed out of Zürich after a serious accident which was caused by a scooter applying the park brake at speed due to some firmware issue.

[s3nnyy]

Flash I see everywhere, Tier not so much in Zürich. Is it new?

The German firms have models that have a brake that works mechanically on the wheels and this was the prerequisite by the city police after the lime accidents. Lime's scooters don't have a mechanical brake.

[microdrum]

Seems to me their business model was faultyfrom the very beginning. For example, they initially claimed 1 week scooter payback to early investors. That was obviously an exaggeration. They also claimed to have market scale economics similar to Uber, but this was also false because the scooters were not being ridden from one micromarket to another. They were just staying in the same area.

There is a reason The Carlyle Group never rolled up all the bike rental shops into a big nationwide conglomerate!!

[jayd16]

Isn't that a public policy result more than a business result? They would still be around but cities have cracked down.