Just out of curiosity I read Section C "Plan for Safe Riding and Storage of Scooters" of the applications for Bird and Scoot. There really isn't a comparison. Scoot's is far more detailed and you can tell they have actual experience in operating responsibly at scale.

An example that stuck out to me: when asked where they plan on operating, Scoot had detailed block-by-block outlines of how they would expand and when. Bird literally just has a Google Maps screen capture of San Francisco.

For a start-up as well funded as they are, it really seems like Bird phoned it in on the application.

This is incredibly interesting, thanks for sharing. The actual applications are also available here:

https://www.sfmta.com/reports/original-2018-scooter-applicat...

Hners should browse the applications by Bird and by Scoot here. It's like night and day. The Bird pages are short and lack significant detail. Scoot on the other hand, actually has what look like questions taken directly from the application, bolded in red, and what look like responses undernearth. That is, they respond directly to the questions being asked with a good amount of detail. This is precisely what you do when applying for things, like say when applying for a grant.

For a community that waxes poetic about presenting themselves and communicating well, Scoot sets a rather good example here.

I ride them daily, and I don't want to use a helmet. I feel that I and I alone am responsible for my own safety. It's not like other people are going to get hurt because I'm not wearing a helmet.

You’re not going to wear a helmet because the government asks you to wear one? Wow, that is an incredibly stupid attitude to have.

You have no parents, no siblings, no friends to grieve over you? The EMT whose effort to stabilize or resuscitate you fails should shrug and move on? Your employer is able to replace you with no disruption? Your insurance will cover your treatment and disability for the next 20 years?

A car would get a big fat “poor” on every point of that evaluation. And yet, we allow our city to be totally overrun with them! I certainly hope that SFMTA is feverishly working to apply these standards to car companies. No car should be allowed to operate in San Francisco until its maker has demonstrated that they can affirmatively prevent them from blocking sidewalk ramps and until they all have programs to track and ban abusive drivers.

It's not illegal to buy your own electric bike or scooter and ride it around SF. Not like SF is banning electric bike manufacturers. So your analogy is pretty bad.

I disagree - the analogy seems appropriate. The poster was comparing the features of each vehicle in use, disregarding the source (manufactured or ride-shares). Similarly, shouldn’t regulations not look too far past the actual impact of an entity?

The analogy would be appropriate if the poster compared scooter sharing services with car sharing services. Note that car sharing services are pretty regulated - you can't just dump cars onto the road and create an app. You have to get a permit first.

There's also a difference between people who own their own scooters vs heavily VC funded firms who want to dump as many of their scooters onto the streets as possible to target high growth. An individual owner has the incentive to keep their vehicle off the streets since otherwise people can easily steal them. This is not the same as these large firms, who have GPS trackers on each scooter. Plus, each scooter is so cheaply made that a loss is not majorly important since they have a ton of money in the bank -- each scooter is peanuts compared to the salaries of their software engineers. Individual scooter owners are much more price sensitive and generally tend not to throw their scooter onto the streets.

I think another argument is one of public space. The sidewalk is a public space that I pay taxes to maintain. Why should a low-revenue growth-hacking startup be allowed to use the public space -- which SF citizens pay to maintain -- for free? I'm a pretty staunch capitalist, but this seems like a "privatize the gains, socialize the losses" scenario.

I would be okay if either 1) startups who wanted to deploy scooters faced heavy taxes for certain violations or 2) they proposed concrete plans to explain how they will not clutter sidewalks. The San Francisco government seems to be doing the latter.

TLDR: Incentives are different between individuals and VC funded firms. Also, don't use public spaces to growth-hack your startup. Or if you do, either 1) respect other people who use them or 2) pay fines / more taxes to compensate the city for extra upkeep costs and to compensate other citizens for inconvenience.

The core benefit of rental scooters is to cover the last mile, between public transport and your house or work. If you have to drag the scooter everywhere, the utility is severely diminished.