I think you dramatically underestimate how difficult that would be. What incentive does the city have to sit down with them and take them seriously? Inevitably

I think you dramatically underestimate how difficult that would be. What incentive does the city have to sit down with them and take them seriously? Inevitably some people will complain about the scooters, even if they're in the road and not on the sidewalk. The problem is you can't have both sides of the argument represented before people even know about the scooters and have been able to see whether or not they're useful. Permissionless innovation makes possible all kinds of improvements that would never gain enough momentum to get off the ground otherwise. (Also, to push back on your argument about the fee part - most of the city has free street parking. Why should scooter companies pay to let people park scooters there when cars weren't paying previously? In the ideal scenario you're proposing, we should just get rid of some street parking to make room for other uses. Let's start cutting down on the massive amount of money we spend subsidizing car ownership.)