I weep at the number of seemingly illiterates reading this and coming away mad because they think it says "ebikes are bad". Edit to answer hawski's question:

I weep at the number of seemingly illiterates reading this and coming away mad because they think it says "ebikes are bad". Edit to answer hawski's question: The author has properly identified many, probably even most, challenges facing us as we try to integrate ebikes into our societies. Some of these are fundamental contradictions in what we ask. They don't work like bicycles; they don't work like any other motorized vehicle. For both commercial and ecological reasons we would love for them to take on a larger role but this is unlikely until such contradictions are resolved, which also requires acknowledging them across a variety of domains (legal, technical, cultural). As to the responses, I feel like people are jousting with some hypothetical version of themselves who they imagine would write this article, rather than what's actually written. Constant projection of the article saying some people will be concerned about X, to thinking the author is passing some judgement on ebikes due to X. Ian Bogost's for lack of a better word, schtick, for the past decade has been making a problem of what seems to be some kind of mundane ontological situation. That he's decided to turn his eye on ebikes this time says of his personal life only that he's recently gotten an ebike. (When it's about, like, shipping crates, HN eats this shit up despite it being equally indulgent!) Edit again: You can even see the discussion recapitulating his points of contention as they're also mostly agreeing the article is bad. Total projection.