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Exactly how much do you expect someone to spend on a scooter daily? People can just buy their own scooter if Bird is forced to pay for all the real costs the Pa
by blackflame7000 7y ago
Exactly how much do you expect someone to spend on a scooter daily? People can just buy their own scooter if Bird is forced to pay for all the real costs the Parent post described.
- elygre 7y agoMy scooter will never be where I need it. The bird (or lime or Voi or...) can be picked up where I need it, and left where I don’t.
- Retric 7y agoMuch like a car or bike as you go from A > B > C > ... the scooter you own is where you are and thus where you want it to be. And just like car rentals for regular users ownership is much cheaper. Tourism or some other niche maker surely exists, but the overhead assuming they need to break even is huge.
- elygre 7y agoNo, the scooter I own would stay at home, as it would be in the way during my morning commute. (I’m not saying it’s for all, but for me, the shared scooter could not be replaced by having my own, which is the argument that kicked of this subthread)
- Retric 7y agoIt’s a hassle, but is it a ~10$ hassle because for most people the unsubsidized price is not going to seem reasonable. Bike shares have comparable utility with vastly lower costs, and often can’t break even.
- Kiro 7y agoYou pick up a scooter when you haven't brought other means of transportation. That's way more common than you seem to imagine (every day for me).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- grandridge 7y agoOr you lazy asses could just walk. If you people reinvested all the time you spend justifying stupid businesses that are only kept afloat by 0% money that is running out, you'd all be better off
- blackflame7000 7y agoIs it bad for business to walk to a fundraiser meeting asking for money to build a scooter business because scooting is the future? Asking for a friend?
- ashelmire 7y ago> The bird (or lime or Voi or...) can be picked up where I need it It sounds like the problem is that it's never where you need it. Unless you had 10x as many scooters as people and they were littered literally everywhere.
- tedmiston 7y agoOwnership comes with significant inconveniences like having to transport and lock it up outside wherever you're going. A major convenience of Bird / Lime / etc is being able to just grab one at any location and then just leave it wherever when you're done, and not have to worry about these things.
- blackflame7000 7y agoYea that's true. Bird will always have the casual rider base that wants the convenience. I think the real money is in capturing the daily commuter, however.
- tedmiston 7y agoIt would be interesting to see Bird have an offering to address the daily commute, something to the effect of Lyft Line. I'd be curious to see an Uber's Ride Pass [1] for scooters. Where I live the scooters are mostly in very concentrated areas that few people would use them for commuting, either because they live in the suburbs (so far away it'd be impractical) or downtown (so close that you could walk nearly as fast as a scooter ride after accounting for sitting in rush hour traffic). [1]: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/
- Someone 7y agoA major convenience of ownership is that, most of the time, a working vehicle will be available when you need it. To get that with a bike share program, bike share companies likely need to accept that their bikes get used less than once a day, on average. That means that users must pay for more than one bicycle. That, in turn, would make ownership cheaper than bikeshare programs.