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I am really excited to see whether this business model is sustainable or not. I have found it interesting that some of my left-leaning friends oppose these sco

I am really excited to see whether this business model is sustainable or not. I have found it interesting that some of my left-leaning friends oppose these scooters on the grounds of them being a public nuisance. For anyone who wants to curb global warming, these scooters are a darn good way to do it. The tradeoffs are easily worth it. Some people want to act like the tradeoffs don't exist/ if they just wish for something hard enough, the solution that has no tradeoffs will appear, despite institutional inertia.

ams6110 8y ago
I have to say I think the impact of scooters on global warming will be nil if not negative. Those little stand-up electric scooters mostly substitute for walking, not driving. And in that sense they are worse for global warming because they actually use electricity, in many places generated by coal. And consider the warming impact of making the things. Metal forging, paint, tires, batteries, electronics.
- zhoujianfu 8y ago
  I think you may be underestimating how many car rides they are removing. They’re great to not deal with parking and traffic, and they’re not taking people away from walking/riding bikes. I scraped bird vs bike share data in Santa Monica for a while and bird did seven times as many rides as the bike share with the same number of devices in the same area (and the bike share was doing roughly the same amount of rides as before bird showed up).
- Reedx 8y ago
  Maybe, I think it depends on how durable they are. And how much they help with the last mile problem. Consider the cases where someone has the option to take a bus or train, but there's a mile gap on both sides of their commute (or even just one side). So instead they drive the whole distance. If they can hop off the bus/train onto a scooter to close that gap, it can tip the scales to public transit vs taking a car.
- maherbeg 8y ago
  https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimodality-an-analysis-of-early-jump-users-4a35d647b7e6 https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimo... This is a great early analysis on the roll out of jump bike shares on the uber platform. During business hours / commuting hours, uber usage dropped by 15% in favor of jump bicycle shares. Many of the trips seem to replace commutes within the city, and this is while the number of bikes is limited. If the number of bikes explodes, and they can politically shift the landscape to enable safer biking/scootering etc., then that can make a huge dent in denser cities in America.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  Agreed, scooters (and skateboards) replace walking, not biking or driving. IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. The old method of drug dealers giving away the “first hit for free” seems to be very apropos here. If the scooter companies were required to provide health and liability insurance for every rider, and get a hefty fine every time one of their riders was seen using the sidewalk and/or not wearing a helmet, at least those costs would not be externalized on society. The original Segway device had large wheels that were set horizontally, and incorporated software and hardware to make them as stable as possible. We’ve thrown out all of those advantages in the name of chasing a “cheaper” device. Disclaimer: I am currently recovering from my own accident from riding a scooter, and so I may be a bit biased. Or maybe That gives me a unique insight that many others in this discussion do not. You decide.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. That's...not the legal sense of “attractive nuisance”, which refers to an object on land likely to attract children which makes the landowner legally responsible for injuries by the object to trespassing children so attracted in circumstances in which they otherwise would not be, provided the children are unable to understand the hazard posed. At best, you are referring to a very loose analogy to the legal sense of the term. > Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. I understand the intuitive attractiveness of this, but is there any empirical evidence for it?
ashelmire 8y ago
> For anyone who wants to curb global warming, these scooters are a darn good way to do it. How is this a better solution than biking?
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  In reply to your comment and the other comments, every bit of incremental change is on the margin. To solve the huge problem of global warming you have to solve a thousand small problems. If you leave convenient, eco-friendly transportation options all around the city, people will use eco-friendly transportation more than if they were not there. These scooters do in fact substitute for cars. Cities that have good public transportation are still enormously polluting, just a little bit less, assuming the darn buses operate at decent capacity. There is no panacea. Virtue signalling doesn't matter. The existence of these scooters does not prevent buses and bikes from existing at the same level of service/ convenience as they did before. If anything they make the city more bike-friendly.
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    > These scooters do in fact substitute for cars. Do they? Is there good evidence of that? I'm pretty skeptical, and from a google search I don't see that - and others seem to be similarly skeptical (outside of companies that own scooter companies...). It actually seems likely that the same people that would bike or take public transit would ride scooters - and that seems like the wrong direction to go.
runj__ 8y ago
It's not a scooter vs. car question, it's a scooter vs. public transportation question. Or scooter vs. bicycle. And while I am pro-scooter I really think the upsides of public transportation and a city being bicycle friendly are greater than a city having pay per minute-scooters.
clairity 8y ago
> "I have found it interesting that some of my left-leaning friends oppose these scooters on the grounds of them being a public nuisance." probably because opposing scooters is a squarely conservative stance? as in, let's keep things the same as before, nevermind the death rate or noxious emissions of cars (for the record, i like cars too). but we're all like this, particularly when we state an (simple) identity but live real, complicated lives. we'll figure it out eventually, but not without working through our collective hypocrisy once again.

ams6110 8y ago

I have to say I think the impact of scooters on global warming will be nil if not negative. Those little stand-up electric scooters mostly substitute for walking, not driving. And in that sense they are worse for global warming because they actually use electricity, in many places generated by coal. And consider the warming impact of making the things. Metal forging, paint, tires, batteries, electronics.

zhoujianfu 8y ago
I think you may be underestimating how many car rides they are removing. They’re great to not deal with parking and traffic, and they’re not taking people away from walking/riding bikes. I scraped bird vs bike share data in Santa Monica for a while and bird did seven times as many rides as the bike share with the same number of devices in the same area (and the bike share was doing roughly the same amount of rides as before bird showed up).
Reedx 8y ago
Maybe, I think it depends on how durable they are. And how much they help with the last mile problem. Consider the cases where someone has the option to take a bus or train, but there's a mile gap on both sides of their commute (or even just one side). So instead they drive the whole distance. If they can hop off the bus/train onto a scooter to close that gap, it can tip the scales to public transit vs taking a car.
maherbeg 8y ago
https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimodality-an-analysis-of-early-jump-users-4a35d647b7e6 https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimo... This is a great early analysis on the roll out of jump bike shares on the uber platform. During business hours / commuting hours, uber usage dropped by 15% in favor of jump bicycle shares. Many of the trips seem to replace commutes within the city, and this is while the number of bikes is limited. If the number of bikes explodes, and they can politically shift the landscape to enable safer biking/scootering etc., then that can make a huge dent in denser cities in America.
bradknowles 8y ago
Agreed, scooters (and skateboards) replace walking, not biking or driving. IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. The old method of drug dealers giving away the “first hit for free” seems to be very apropos here. If the scooter companies were required to provide health and liability insurance for every rider, and get a hefty fine every time one of their riders was seen using the sidewalk and/or not wearing a helmet, at least those costs would not be externalized on society. The original Segway device had large wheels that were set horizontally, and incorporated software and hardware to make them as stable as possible. We’ve thrown out all of those advantages in the name of chasing a “cheaper” device. Disclaimer: I am currently recovering from my own accident from riding a scooter, and so I may be a bit biased. Or maybe That gives me a unique insight that many others in this discussion do not. You decide.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. That's...not the legal sense of “attractive nuisance”, which refers to an object on land likely to attract children which makes the landowner legally responsible for injuries by the object to trespassing children so attracted in circumstances in which they otherwise would not be, provided the children are unable to understand the hazard posed. At best, you are referring to a very loose analogy to the legal sense of the term. > Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. I understand the intuitive attractiveness of this, but is there any empirical evidence for it?

ashelmire 8y ago

> For anyone who wants to curb global warming, these scooters are a darn good way to do it. How is this a better solution than biking?

CompelTechnic 8y ago
In reply to your comment and the other comments, every bit of incremental change is on the margin. To solve the huge problem of global warming you have to solve a thousand small problems. If you leave convenient, eco-friendly transportation options all around the city, people will use eco-friendly transportation more than if they were not there. These scooters do in fact substitute for cars. Cities that have good public transportation are still enormously polluting, just a little bit less, assuming the darn buses operate at decent capacity. There is no panacea. Virtue signalling doesn't matter. The existence of these scooters does not prevent buses and bikes from existing at the same level of service/ convenience as they did before. If anything they make the city more bike-friendly.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  > These scooters do in fact substitute for cars. Do they? Is there good evidence of that? I'm pretty skeptical, and from a google search I don't see that - and others seem to be similarly skeptical (outside of companies that own scooter companies...). It actually seems likely that the same people that would bike or take public transit would ride scooters - and that seems like the wrong direction to go.

runj__ 8y ago

It's not a scooter vs. car question, it's a scooter vs. public transportation question. Or scooter vs. bicycle. And while I am pro-scooter I really think the upsides of public transportation and a city being bicycle friendly are greater than a city having pay per minute-scooters.

clairity 8y ago

> "I have found it interesting that some of my left-leaning friends oppose these scooters on the grounds of them being a public nuisance." probably because opposing scooters is a squarely conservative stance? as in, let's keep things the same as before, nevermind the death rate or noxious emissions of cars (for the record, i like cars too). but we're all like this, particularly when we state an (simple) identity but live real, complicated lives. we'll figure it out eventually, but not without working through our collective hypocrisy once again.