[ping_pong]

I disagree wholeheartedly. Electric scooters are fun and useful, especially for commuting in the morning from a drop off location like a train station. The real question is whether or not it can be profitable, which I highly doubt. I would rather just get my own if I needed it.

[neaden]

I think scooters are very area dependent. Both because of weather, and the supporting infrastructure.

[mcculley]

I live in downtown Orlando. Lime, Lynx, and Bird have littered downtown with scooters. I run almost every day and they are often left directly in the middle of the sidewalk, either upright or fallen over. A couple months ago I began relocating any rental equipment I find in my way on the sidewalk. I am not at all gentle about this and I'm sure I have damaged some of the equipment. I like the idea that people might use these more than cars, but investors need to figure out a better way to store them than in the sidewalk.

[ac29]

I get the anger about sidewalks getting littered with scooters, but damaging or destroying them is just creating more hazardous e-waste to be disposed of.

[heavyset_go]

There needs to be a more sustainable model for scooter rentals than "when the scooter breaks, we just throw it out and replace it with another $20 white label scooter from China"

The reason they're treated like trash, by both the company that put them there and by pedestrians, is because that is what they are.

[jmchuster]

Tell that to the homeless guy in SF who made it his life mission to push scooters into the bay. They even had to make a line item just for him.

[mcculley]

I'm not really angry. I consider it a public service for the people who come along after me. These things are a hazard for runners.

[mcculley]

Where do you live? Maybe I can put them in front of your house.

[three_seagrass]

True, but that still makes them a market fad. Even if you got cities on board, the costs are fairly fixed, so while the scooters are fun, it was never a feasible business at scale.

[gerash]

The problem with electric scooters is even though they're nice in urban areas, they're a best-effort service. You can't rely on them to be somewhere by a specific time as they could either be unavailable around you, too far or the one you end up walking to could happen to be broken.

I think the rental bikes which have a fixed docking station are a better design.