[beaned]

If they're going to make that many bikes, why not just give them away? Why have them be "shared" and made to be returned to a pile?

It would at least eradicate theft. Most people would have the same model. You could get a handout instead of having it stolen, and if it was stolen, then that person could get the handout. And the only people claiming them would be the ones using them.

[dheera]

Because capitalism and accountants prevent you from giving stuff away.

[manigandham]

That's in China. "Capitalism" isn't preventing any of that there.

[dheera]

In practice, China is highly capitalistic as an economy. It's authoritarian capitalism, not communism, even though it has a "communist party".

This phenomenon of bikes piling up is literally venture capitalists throwing money at startups (in return for equity) to deploy more and more bikes to outnumber competitors in a hopeless race to monopolize bike sharing. It's literally an exhibit of one of the failure modes of extreme capitalism.

Giving them away, as GGGP suggests, would actually be a departure from capitalism, and perhaps a good one.