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The solution is super simple. Stop paying in direct payout and start paying in riding credits. I sometimes used Bird from the train station to my home in the ev
by JamesAdir 8y ago
The solution is super simple. Stop paying in direct payout and start paying in riding credits. I sometimes used Bird from the train station to my home in the evening. I would happily charge it in my home during the night and release it in the morning for Bird credits.
But it seems that at this stage since the scooter companies raised so much money, they just have no problem to ignore it and pay directly or just throw more scooters into the pool.
- benj111 8y agoWouldn't you then get to a situation where x gets a bird, takes it home, charges it, uses it the next day, essentially creating a rental model where each scooter is used by one person a day? Presumably the nature of the beast is that these start off the day next to transport hubs and then spread out from there. It isn't then worth it for some one to go out of their way to take it back to that transport hub. If you are travelling against the prevailing traffic what you say would work, but not for the majority. As I understand it the bikes it London (and probably else where) vary the charges depending on where you're going. So if you're taking a bike back to where it needs to be, the charge is less. If you're taking it out to the edge of a zone where it will need to be collected by an employee, you pay more.
- davnicwil 8y agoCould this be solved by saying you stop getting credit after X days using the same scooter?
- sokoloff 8y agoSeems that just requires switching scooters every X-1 days. Ride up to one; stop your ride; start a new ride. Net cost $1 and you start a new cheap rental.
- davnicwil 8y agoWell, yes. And then you've increased the transaction costs of such a pattern of usage, thereby discouraging it, whilst also encouraging regular rotation of scooters throughout the customer base even when people stick with it. I think that probably goes some way towards solving the problem of 1-1 hoarding.
- baybal2 8y agoWhat I saw in China with Liubike is that middle age people make business "renting" out fully charged Liubikes
- JoshuaDavid 8y ago> Wouldn't you then get to a situation where x gets a bird, takes it home, charges it, uses it the next day, essentially creating a rental model where each scooter is used by one person a day? As I recall, Bird uses Xiaomi Mi scooters, which cost ~$500 retail. Even if the credit is high enough that Bird only makes $1 / weekday off the person "renting" the scooter like that, it would still only take 2 years to pay the cost of the scooter, so that "rental" model would probably work fine.
- JamesAdir 8y ago@benji111 Not at all. I'm a casual user and I don't use scooters daily. I think anyone that uses a scooter daily prefers to buying one of his own. Let's say I've taken one from my train station to my home in the evening, charge it, and then ride it back in the morning (creating more income for Bird) and leave it in the train station. It will be used all day long, and I don't expect it to be in the train station when I get back. I think that just paying with bird credits reduce the entire "let's make a business out of charging" and will just create a better community. As again, I think that this problem is completely solvable by Bird. And in other threads they've mentioned that there are many signals to those "hordaers". I think that Bird just don't want to deal with it since it has enough funding/focuses on market adoption. It's the same with Microsoft and piracy tools of Windows. I'm sure they can crack it down completely, but it just don't bother them enough on the bottom line.
- goobynight 8y agoMost people don't want to work for credit at the company store.
- JamesAdir 8y agoIt can be completely optional. If someone is doing a great job as a charger for some time, they can be switched to being paid directly.