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San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft
- jtokoph 8y agoScoot and Skip will receive buy out offers from all 4 companies very soon then.
- WisNorCan 8y agoI generally away from regulation, but let me articulate the pro-regulation argument. Markets that are important (like transportation) and have network effects need to be regulated. A monopoly with Uber and/or Lyft dominating local transportation is not good for consumers or cities in the long-term. Cities should take control of their transportation and ensure competition by managing allocation of capacity. I think the best parallel is managing of spectrum in telecom to ensure competition.
- austenallred 8y agoSan Francisco just granted two companies a monopoly when previously there were multiple companies fighting for the same business. That’s the exact opposite of what you’re advocating.
- WisNorCan 8y agoVCs would not be giving billion $ valuations if they thought this will be a highly competitive market with many players. Everyone is betting on a winner takes most market.
- repsilat 8y agoScooters are cheap enough and slow enough that the benefits to scale - aren't hard to reach for anyone with funding, and - can be maintained over relatively small geographic areas (neighbourhoods/cities, not states/countries/globally). If some new company invents a scooter with better tires or a better battery or a disco ball and a stereo it's not hard for them to enter the market. And, in fact, this regulation is happening because the city thinks it's too easy for upstarts to get a toe-hold and cause negative externalities like sidewalk crowding. (Besides these points: Has anyone made the argument that "overwhelming, unapproachable network-effect leads" are kinda great outcomes for consumers? Like, assume there were 10 facebooks instead of one -- kinda terrible. Or if there were a hundred Ubers and Lyfts, and you didn't know which one had cars close to you... awful.)
- twblalock 8y agoI’ve noticed that a lot of “natural” monopolies are regulated under the assumption they will become monopolies but before they actually do. I suspect a lot of that regulation has been wrong, monopolies would not have emerged, and we would be better off regulating only the monopolies that actually exist. I’d rather see the scooter companies fight it out than have the city government pick winners and losers when the industry is only a few months old and multiple viable competitors already exist.
- jonathankoren 8y agoThat's certainly the conventional wisdom, but there's very little in the way of evidence that this is anything other than a cheap commodity.
- eridius 8y agoThis is a time-limited pilot program that also caps the number of scooters. It's far from a market monopoly. In addition, there's no network effect with scooters. Car sharing has the chicken-and-egg problem where you need enough drivers to meet demand, and you need enough passengers to give drivers a reason to drive for you. But scooters are cheap and easy to dump a whole bunch on a city, so there's no reason why a new company can't move in on an existing scooter market. For the most part the only important pieces are the brand recognition of the company and how easy their app is to use. If Uber is serious about scooters, I fully expect them to just move back in when the pilot program is over and immediately pick up a sizeable chunk of the market.
- tomglynch 8y agoI disagree. There is a network effect here, people will use the brand that already is installed on their phone PLUS the one that has the most scooters. This is what can occur here.
- JSDave 8y agoIf someone wanted to sell a new app, they have to get people to recognize their brand and install their app no matter what. Ride sharing companies then also have to reach a critical mass where drivers and riders can match in a reasonable time. I think overcoming that is the network effect.
- ccvannorman 8y ago"Overcoming entering into a new market" is categorically different from "Overcoming a mandatory 6 month freeze on your ability to compete while your competitor gets first dibs."
- eridius 8y agoUsing the app already on your phone isn't a network effect. A network effect is when the more users there are, the more valuable the network is to each new user. For ridesharing, the more drivers there are, the more useful the service is to passengers, and the more passengers there are the more attractive the service is to drivers. But for scooters? Whether a given scooter brand is popular or is unknown has no bearing whatsoever on its utility to a new user, all that really matters is whether the scooters are available when and where the user wants them, and whether the app is easy to use.
- fipple 8y agoWell maybe those companies shouldn’t have been huge assholes the way that Uber was. The city is once bitten and twice shy with Uber.
- austenallred 8y agoWhat did Bird or Lime do?
- fipple 8y agoThey created conditions for a massive degradation of the public sidewalk especially for wheelchair users. They did nothing to fix it. Regulators act slowly and rarely, but when they do they always overreact. Entirely predictable.
- seehafer 8y ago>A monopoly with Uber and/or Lyft dominating local transportation is not good for consumers or cities in the long-term. As opposed to a city ineffectively delivering transportation to such an extent that people have to drive their personally-owned cars everywhere? Anyone in SF who was here before Uber will tell you that Uber and Lyft were and remain a godsend. Cabs were few and far between (there's an Eddie Izzard bit about this actually) and Muni is slow and unreliable.
- WisNorCan 8y agoYou are attacking a position that I am not advocating. I am not suggesting government run transportation. I am suggesting that government ensure that the private market remains competitive with multiple players by allocating capacity. In any case, the only thing worse than government running services is a company with a monopoly running services. The first tends to be inefficient. The second tends to be inefficient with a profit motive (see Comcast).
- ams6110 8y agoNo, government services are worse. I can opt out of Comcast.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoSure if you want DSL. Choices in my market are: dialup, dsl, and Comcast.
- baddox 8y agoDoes your state or local government have a deal with Comcast effectively awarding it a monopoly? There’s a fairly good chance the answer is yes.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoI live in Portland, OR. I don't think there's a granted monopoly to Comcast here. There is actually a small independent WISP here I would love to use, but they don't serve my particular location currently.
- xtqctz 8y agoIf you consider the short term rental of inexpensive scooters an important market needing laws to regulate their capacity (..by the wise and benevolent leaders of this sparkling city..), it's hard to imagine any market that would fall short of your importance threshold. The notion that the only way to ensure competition is to forbid it is convoluted.
- eropple 8y agoWhen corporate entities happily take money in exchange for their clients littering the streets with eyesores, it is a rather important problem. Boston hasn't been overrun yet, and I am hopeful that we stay that way.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoHave you tried one? They’re actually quite handy.
- eropple 8y agoI have no need for one and I don't need to throw somebody else's brightly colored garbage onto the property of or into the streets I share with my neighbors.
- olalonde 8y agoHave you heard of the expression "live and let live"? The level of entitlement displayed in your comments is astounding. You feel it's reasonable to prevent everyone else from using a very cheap and convenient transportation service just because the vehicles aren't esthetically pleasing to you?
- eropple 8y agoWho is doing the "let live" when a bunch of rental bicycles or a bunch of rental scooters are getting thrown across sidewalks or into a community pond, exactly? In your world, it's incumbent upon me to let them shit up my town, but not incument upon them--either the users or the companies that supply them--to not shit up our town. That's a pretty nasty world.
- djrogers 8y agoWait, so a monopoly with Skip and Scoot is somehow better? Literally the only thing creating any sort of scarcity or monopoly here is regulation, so claiming it's necessary to prevent a monopoly is a bit ludicrous. I don't think many people are in favor of zero regulation, but politicians literally picking winners and losers instead of the market is even worse.
- adrr 8y agoPoliticians shouldn't be picking winners or losers as this can lead to corruption and regulatory capture.
- greglindahl 8y agoThe city held a bidding process to pick two initial winners, which is ... a market. I guess you prefer a different organization to the market, but...
- bradleybuda 8y agoHow do "transportation" companies (dockless scooters in this case) have network effects? The automobile industry, which is about as mature as markets get, has seven companies in the US with at least 5% market share and the leader (GM) has merely 17%, and is largely bereft of command-and-control economic policies.
- greglindahl 8y agoFor a scooter, I have to walk until I find a scooter for a company that I'm enrolled with. Do I even have company X's app on my phone to show their scooter nearby? If I run across company Y's scooter, how much effort is it for me to enroll to use it? And is company Z offering me a bulk discount? All of these are totally different from buying a car.
- superchink 8y agoDumb question: are you arguing that renting a scooter is harder than buying a car? Or easier?
- greglindahl 8y agoNeither. I'm saying they're completely different things with respect to network effects, in response to someone who thought they were similar in some fashion.
- pjscott 8y agoThere aren't a lot of barriers to entry in the ride-hailing market. Want to ride with another service? It's just another app. Want to drive for one more service in addition to the rest? Again, just another app that sends notifications. If Uber and/or Lyft get a monopoly and then jack up prices, they won't have a monopoly for long.
- quotemstr 8y agoBusiness permits should be shall-issue: if an applicant adheres to a set of rules known in advance, the city ought to have no power to deny its permit application. Want to limit the number of something? Fine. Auction off medallions or something in a transparent, open way. Don't pick and choose businesses the way SF busybodies do. San Francisco has severe and worsening problems primarily due to rampant interference in the operation of the free market. The city keeps doubling down on this interference every time someone, somewhere, tries to find a way around the city's thicket of rules.
- greglindahl 8y agoThis is a brand new business category and no one has any idea how much demand there is and what rules are needed or are reasonable or are sufficient to prevent problems like blocking sidewalks. What you're describing might be possible for a mature business category. The free market doesn't always magically work.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoMay issue licensing is a scourge. It's just a magnet for corruption and inconsistent treatment.
- matchbok 8y agoSame thing with housing, with no end in sight. :(
- ohazi 8y agoSame with home renovation / remodeling / addition / construction permits. If your design meets code and zoning, it should automatically get approved. None of this nimby-neighbor-going-to-the-planning-meeting-and-getting-your-project-cancelled-because-your-chimney-will-cast-a-shadow-on-their-backyard bullshit.
- threeseed 8y agoSo you are saying you wouldn't complain if a 50 storey apartment complex was built right next to you and bathed your entire house in darkness 24/7. Sure thing. This free for all world sounds downright scary.
- jshap70 8y agooff topic, but does anyone else find the name for Lime weird considering there's already something in the tech space with the same name?
- stephengillie 8y agoI keep getting Lime confused with Limeade - the latter work to increase efficacy of corporate health plans, to make sure your employees get what you're paying the health insurance company for. It's like "Pandora Nexus" all over again.
- spiritcat 8y agolimewire?
- pfisch 8y agoWhere is the startup that creates mods for these scooters so they operate for free? Or the startup that opens a chop shop for disassembling all these abandoned scooters and sells the parts? Seriously though these scooter permits sound corrupt, or have the potential for massive corruption.
- stephengillie 8y agoI'm honestly surprised more people aren't taking the battery packs off bicycles. I've heard there's effectively a cell phone inside (microphone, speaker, accelerometers, GPS, cell connection, etc), and announces that it's calling the police, when moved unexpectedly. But cracking that case and pulling the batteries has to have some value. I'm honestly surprised we don't hear more news about that sort of criminal activity. Maybe if lithium were involved in the production of meth...
- ebikelaw 8y agoIn Oakland (where Bird and Lime dumped all their junk after SF told them off) I have seen lots of stripped scooters. Also it’s trivial to hotwire a Bird, and everyone in Oakland seemingly knows how to do it.
- neonate 8y agohttp://archive.is/DbXBe http://archive.is/DbXBe
- LeoPanthera 8y agoI wish HN disallowed posts to paywalled articles.
- dang 8y agoIf there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20paywall https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- sigfubar 8y agoElectric scooters are a public menace. Good riddance!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 8y agoSo they want only x number of scooters in the streets. Fine, but the bureaucrats are picking winners, when they should let the consumers choose.
- emodendroket 8y agoAnd how do you propose they do that?
- jamiequint 8y agoHow about setting base rules and auctioning off permits that require annual renewal rather than playing king-maker. Or even better, set base rules for which the companies must comply then allow all companies to compete and fine those companies that don't comply.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- djrogers 8y agoThis really comes off as spiteful and childish. Bird and Lime didn't come kiss the ring before daring to provide services to the residents of San Francisco, so they get kicked to the curb in favor of a couple of companies who's timing hadn't yet angered the City.
- AceyMan 8y agoTrue — no, they didn't. They just clucked it up so bad in their launch locations that the smell had already wafted up from the Beach Cities down here to the Bay. Move fast and piss people off doesn't work too well, eh?
- draw_down 8y agoI just don’t understand this attitude that these companies are owed their ability to do business, particularly when it involves just dumping these things on the public sidewalks.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- djrogers 8y agoTheir customers dumped them on the sidewalks, and it seems to be a San Francisco thing - if you go to other cities with active scooter sharing, you don't see this behavior. Of course you also don't see peopel dfecating on the street in most other cities either, so San Francisco is a special kind of special.
- JeremyBanks 8y agoLet this be a lesson to the next Uber. :) And the current Uber too, actually. :D
- Kalium 8y agoIt's worth remembering that Uber learned the lesson of Night School - a startup that insisted on playing by the rules and for its honesty was shut down. https://psmag.com/economics/night-school-failed-because-it-followed-law https://psmag.com/economics/night-school-failed-because-it-f... Combined, the lesson here seems to be this: * Asking permission for something new will tend to get you squashed. * If you're big enough, popular enough, and rich enough, you can work around this. * If someone else fails at that approach, you might get in in an arbitrarily regulated way some time later. I can see where some might like this lesson! Though personally, I think there might be some opportunity for improvement.
- throwaway4Later 8y agoInterviewed with Scoot last month on Howard St. The entire experience felt like a Monty Python interview- engineers driven on a death march to get their stuff done and interview an endless stream of qualified candidates, all the while management isn't ready to hire, but still bringing on a torrent of candidates. The interviewing process was one of the most disorganized and chaotic I've ever gone through. Pair programming exercises scheduled without working computers, that kind of thing. I never wish any company to fail, but...
- jamiequint 8y agoWow, someone's bitter they didn't pass an interview.
- catacombs 8y agoWhat an idiotic response.
- salawat 8y agoConsidering San Fran is already famous for hilariously spiteful and terrible zoning/real estate development practices, it isn't exactly surprising. Are the companies who got permits local? That may have factored into it. Also, considering the sheer hatred these companies and their business model inspire in me, I can't say it doesn't fill me with glee.
- sagarm 8y agoUber, Lyft, Lime (rejected), Skip and Scoot (accepted) are all SF companies. Bird is based in Santa Monica.
- yumraj 8y agoI'd love to be proven wrong, only future will tell, but this seems to be yet another fad being funded by free money from VCs. In fact the only winner in all of this are the manufacturers who are making these scooters. According to https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-scooters-taking-over-san-francisco/ https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-scoote... at least Bird and Spin are using Xiomi scooters. Lime is also made overseas, read China. So, this is nothing but Silicon Valley VC money, actually their LP's money, moving to China.
- kojeovo 8y agoVery little moving to China according to that aticle > Bird could buy a fleet of 500 scooters for $137,500, or 0.1% of its total funding
- yumraj 8y agoAccording to the same article, Lime has deployed over 35,000 bikes and scooters across the US since last June. They are available at $250 - $299 a piece (https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/hot-sale-best-original-xiaomi-m365_60744403238.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/hot-sale-best-origina...) Plus there is shipping, which I don't know the cost. So, that itself, before shipping and customs is is $8.75M - $10.465M. Not exactly chump change.
- oh-kumudo 8y agoSeems like the Scooter is not popular and only useful for a niche segment of the population. The bike sharing business has caused a hazard in places like China, because of the unrestricted dumping. So there is definitely a point that government needs to chime in and do some stuff.
- oh-kumudo 8y agoSame. They really needs to work on their public images as out-of-touch entitled manchild.
- s0rce 8y agoIf they are not popular why is there a need to regulate them, they will simply go out of business. Also, I see people riding them all the time in the East Bay.
- noobermin 8y agoThey are popular amongst those who ride, not all people who use the sidewalk and street, which is a larger segment of the population. Might as well ask why we need smoking areas in buildings.
- jonathankoren 8y agoBecause it's a problem with oversupply. And sure, eventually they'll go under, but there's no reason why everyone should have to kick their way through VC funded lithium trash, just to walk down the street until they do. Oh yeah, and when they do go under, you're still going to be left with all this detritus, because when the company ceases to exist, it won't be picking them up. Here, you can force the dumpers to still clean up their mess.
- jonthepirate 8y agoCan anybody name two companies which are about to get acquired? Anybody at all?
- aviv 8y agoNot to worry, these companies that were left out will be let in next year once they pony up the correct bribe amount to the relevant decision maker.
- Felz 8y agoIs a license for 2500 scooters worth much, startup wise? Pulling numbers from this: https://medium.com/13-notes/unit-economics-of-the-bird-scooters-f1c971a31574 https://medium.com/13-notes/unit-economics-of-the-bird-scoot... To maintain a presence of 2500 scooters for a year, you'd need 2500 * (365 days / 50 days (scooter lifespan)) = 18.2k scooters. That's 18.2k * $600 (lifetime cost) = $10.9 million in capital. Each of these scooters generating $14 in revenue a day is $12.7 million in revenue a year, for a profit of $1.8 million and a 16% return on capital. If we assume a San Francisco quota was rolled out to the entire country, that'd be (325 million / 880k) * 1.8 million = $664 million in profit, at best.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cjlars 8y agoThe 50 day lifespan seems too low. Even if the batteries can only survive ~50 charges, the rest of the scooter will outlive the battery. Revising that number upwards skyrockets the ROI figure...
- fipple 8y agoThe scooters that were in SF were certainly not surviving 50 days. They were 90% broken and not because of the battery.
- rorykoehler 8y agoThis is a teething issue that will be fixed by iterative design processes as they learn which parts get stressed by this type of usage.
- fipple 8y agoIf the scooter wars are driven by scooter design the winners are going to be very different than Bird and Lime which are logistics companies.
- andr 8y agoSFMTA has published the detailed feedback[1] and summary ratings[2] for each petition. Although the actual applications are not published, it really looks like Bird did a poor job on paper. For example, most of the companies relied on swipe-through screens in apps to remind people to use helmets, which the SFMTA deems insufficient. I have to agree, as I have rarely seen someone on a scooter with a helmet. [1] https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2018/08/sfmta_scooter_applicant_response_letters_08.30.2018.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume... [2] https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2018/08/application_rating_summary_table_08.320.2018.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume... Also, note that Scoot already has an arrangement with the city for the red electric mopeds they rent out.
- sean_lynch 8y agoThis is incredibly interesting, thanks for sharing. The actual applications are also available here: https://www.sfmta.com/reports/original-2018-scooter-applications-received https://www.sfmta.com/reports/original-2018-scooter-applicat...
- noobermin 8y agoHners should browse the applications by Bird and by Scoot here. It's like night and day. The Bird pages are short and lack significant detail. Scoot on the other hand, actually has what look like questions taken directly from the application, bolded in red, and what look like responses undernearth. That is, they respond directly to the questions being asked with a good amount of detail. This is precisely what you do when applying for things, like say when applying for a grant. For a community that waxes poetic about presenting themselves and communicating well, Scoot sets a rather good example here.
- ebikelaw 8y agoA car would get a big fat “poor” on every point of that evaluation. And yet, we allow our city to be totally overrun with them! I certainly hope that SFMTA is feverishly working to apply these standards to car companies. No car should be allowed to operate in San Francisco until its maker has demonstrated that they can affirmatively prevent them from blocking sidewalk ramps and until they all have programs to track and ban abusive drivers.
- vermontdevil 8y agoInteresting. Both Bird and Lime were recently approved to come back in Indianapolis after being asked to leave. The council wanted to re-evaluate the whole concept and set up some rules, fees, etc. Then they allowed these two companies to return. [1] 1. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/08/28/dockless-electric-scooters-return-indianapolis-september-4/1040280002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/08/28/dockless-elec...
- pgnas 8y agoThe mafia was taken down in Chicago because it was providing something that was desired by the people, people who should be in control of their own lives and will ultimately be responsible for the decisions that they make, freedom. Unfortunately, the powers that be did not see it that way, you can argue that Al Capone was taken down for tax evasion, I don't care, this is how he was convicted,one has nothing to do with the other. Al Capone was taken down because he had more power than that of the government. These companies are being shut down because they are not willing to pay the shakedown money by the city mafia. We need to take this country back and until you people do not understand this, you will remain slaves. I almost believe that this is what you want.. I do not. This is NOT what this country was built upon and changing this, being OK with this will eventually lead to the destruction of our country, which, before that happens, will be a civil war.
- berbec 8y ago> Al Capone was taken down because he had more power than that of the government. Really? Not conceding the point of him having more power or that being the reason he got taken down, but isn't it good thing we had strong federal government with tough regulation to pick up the slack of lax local regulators > this will eventually lead to the destruction of our country, which, before that happens, will be a civil war. Amazing performance there. From "denied scooter licenses" to "dystopian communist dictatorship" to "Civil war" in under 5 paragraphs.
- dang 8y agoIf you continue to post ideological rants to HN, we are going to ban you. It's not what this site is for, and we've asked you already. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- incadenza 8y agoI’m confused. My sense is that the approach here should have been to put forward a set of regulations and enforcement, and then open up the market. If one of the companies violates the rules, then obviously ban them.
- afriday11 8y agoCan we just ban cars in SF while we are at it? People drive them with a vengeance, clutter up the streets while they are in parking mode, and are a general eyesore.
- almost_usual 8y agoSo ban Uber and Lyft?
- stale2002 8y agoI'd prefer banning personal cars (within city limits), as those take up a massive amount of space, with regards to parking. Taxis on the other hand, have usage rates of ~50 percent. Whereas personal cars, parked on the side of the road, are only being used ~5 % of the time, and the other 95% is wasted.
- almost_usual 8y agoHow about public transit? Don’t understand the argument for banning personal cars but not Uber, Lyft, and Taxi.
- afriday11 8y agoPersonal cars spend most of their time parked on the side of the road using up valuable real-estate. Transportation services like Uber or taxis use the road to move people around and don't take up as much space as personal cars. Public transit and bikes are much more space and energy efficient, though don't get the investment they need to work for most people. US cities are optimized for sprawl and personal car centric transportation, which makes it annoying that new ideas like these scooter startups (which are actually pretty great when you try them) are blocked by officials in favor of a system that is expensive and sub-optimal for the health of society.
- throwaway66666 8y agoI recently went south to LA and SD, and the scooters are awesome there. I saw them mostly near the beach, and 0 thrown in the middle of the pavement, none blocking exits or riding them obnoxiously. They even have scooter police that will give you a ticket if you go too fast (I am not saying that as necessarily a good thing, just that they seem to have their stuff together as cities). For the first time I actually made an account and hopped on one of them. However, in SF they overdid it. I don't know if SF residents got replaced by a bunch of self-entitled nerdy manchildren, but holy hell they were obnoxious. You would see 5-6 of them blocking the entrance to a restaurant (at anchorsteam brewery tap room especially). Thrown down in the middle of the pavement. People riding them on the sidewalk yelling "GOTTA GO FAST", going somewhat fast (at least have some dignity and dress like Sonic the hedgehog if you 're gonna do that). Think of an 80s action movie where the punks or hell's angels type of gangs run amok in the city, but it's dudes wearing startup t-shirts on electric scooters instead. Anyway, I 'm not a nimby but their presence in SF really left a sour taste. But after seeing them in LA and San Diego I am convinced they can work super nicely if a little bit of common sense is applied. Maybe the SF populous is early adopters and jumped on the latest trend with too much passion, or maybe those companies put on the streets too many units. I don't know, but it can be done right and I 'd really like to see them back.
- noobermin 8y agoThey aren't going anywhere. People are just mad their favorite service didn't get chosen.
- throwaway66666 8y agoWho cares though, they are all the same. (I forgot which company's I used, until I checked my phone now to see the app). They really didn't work much on brand recognition, I 'm surprised people have favorites
- woolvalley 8y agoI'm mostly upset by the # limits. It's not enough for the entire market. Also I feel like some of the bad behavior was vandalism by haters. Who the hell would put black sharpie on the QR codes or shit on scooters themselves? Probably not someone who uses them.
- fipple 8y agoUber and Lime will but Skip and Scoot this month.
- tzs 8y agoOne reason it might make sense to have a service like this provided by just a two or three companies in a given city instead of a large number is verification and enforcement of safety regulations such as requirements that the companies keep the scooters well maintained. Two ways come to mind for a city to verify that a company is handling such things properly. First, the city can have auditors regularly examine the internal operations of the company, talk to employees, and review consumer feedback. Second, the city can pull a random sample of the company's scooters off the street and have city mechanics inspect them. The number of scooters you have to examine from a company to determine if it is meeting maintenance requirements depends on the margin of error that you are willing to accept, not on the number of scooters in that company's fleet. Let's say you need to examine 50 scooters to get the desired margin of error. Suppose are going to allow 5000 scooters in your city. If you do that with two companies, 2500 each, and you audit annually, you'll be doing each year two audits of the facilities and employees, and checking 100 scooters (50 from each company). If instead you have that same 5000 scooters, but now provided by 10 companies, you'll be doing 10 facility and employee audits, and checking 500 scooters. So same number of scooters on the street in both cases, but about 5 times the administrative costs to the city in the 10 company case is in the 2 company case. Also, if consumers need a different app for each scooter company, a smaller number of companies will probably serve consumers better. Again, take a city with 5000 total scooters. If those were supplied be two companies, evenly split, then a consumer would only need two apps to have complete coverage. A consumer with only one of the apps would still have a decent change of being able to find a scooter in a reasonable time frame. If that 5000 were split among 10 companies, a consumer with only one app would only have a pool of 500 scooters available. If those ended up spread out around the city it would be hard for a one app consumer to find a nearby scooter. If that company concentrated in one smaller area that could solve that problem...but then the consumer would probably end up needing the apps of several others, too, to find scooters when they are in other parts of the city. There is going to be some optimum number of scooter companies for a given city and total fleet size which balances things. Lower numbers are more convenient and usable by consumers, and cost less to regulate and verify, but higher numbers have more competition which might lower prices. My guess...and it is just a guess...is that three would be about right for most reasonably large cities.
- bfung 8y agoThank you SF. Too many scooters littered on too many corners of streets - makes walking near places like hospitals quite the hazard. The litters don't seem to care since they're not in the area.
- singularity2001 8y agoIs that good because of less monopolization?
- alexnewman 8y agoWhat’s the paywall strategy here