Is Bird the Word?
The company Bird (the Uber of electric scooters) is now valued at $2 billion. It was the fastest company to reach a $1 billion valuation and is getting a lot of publicity because of this. Also, the company is fighting local authorities (backed out of Nashville completely)/a rider who rents one of their vehicles can leave it anywhere when they are done which is annoying.
with some more details. Can anyone who lives in SF/LA comment on if these scooters are as bad as Vice is making them out to be? Or is Bird the word?
They are annoying as shit, because people suck and barely manage to get them off the road when I'm assuming the battery dies.
However, I did see an elderly mexican lady driving one around with a few grocery bags and thought that increased mobility and user friendliness was kinda cool.
There were a shit load of them in Santa Monica last time I was out there, no one ran me over and I thought it was a novel concept, especially given the lack of energy output compared to say riding a bike to work and getting all gross.
Back here on the east coast we have the LimeBike (and various other bike share programs). Same concept, you scan the code with your phone and it unlocks and you can then leave them wherever when you are done, natural ebb and flow of transportation means that they generally end up at the metro or outside large apartment complexes. Yea it's annoying when someone just drops one in the middle of the sidewalk and bounces, but the benefits definitely outweigh the costs IMO.
I am interested as to how the scooters get recharged as that adds a pretty unique dynamic compared to the bike. I guess ill watch the Vice doc and take it with a grain of salt since anything worth more than 15 dollars that's not tech or not weed related is generally demonized by them.
I think bikesharing in US urban areas is massively underdeveloped, especially compared to cities in China. BUY BUY BUY
yea just watched the doc, didn't really have any of my questions answered about how they are charged. although apparently the same company I had mentioned above, Lime, has electric scooters as well.
Basically the elderly hate them and the Chads and Thads of the world like them. I'm assuming the 98% in the middle are ambivalent to them either way.
$2 f*cking billion. I sometimes hate this country.
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