4 ms·

Here is an example of squandering: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/

• lowercased 4y ago
  That is wild!
• beaned 4y ago
  If they're going to make that many bikes, why not just give them away? Why have them be "shared" and made to be returned to a pile? It would at least eradicate theft. Most people would have the same model. You could get a handout instead of having it stolen, and if it was stolen, then that person could get the handout. And the only people claiming them would be the ones using them.
  • dheera 4y ago
    Because capitalism and accountants prevent you from giving stuff away.
    • manigandham 4y ago
      That's in China. "Capitalism" isn't preventing any of that there.
      • dheera 4y ago
        In practice, China is highly capitalistic as an economy. It's authoritarian capitalism, not communism, even though it has a "communist party". This phenomenon of bikes piling up is literally venture capitalists throwing money at startups (in return for equity) to deploy more and more bikes to outnumber competitors in a hopeless race to monopolize bike sharing. It's literally an exhibit of one of the failure modes of extreme capitalism. Giving them away, as GGGP suggests, would actually be a departure from capitalism, and perhaps a good one.
• rossdavidh 4y ago
  Astounding. They do everything on an epic scale, even squandering.
• ukulele 4y ago
  An example of US VCs squandering on scooter startups is bike sharing in China?