It's chaos vs. order. A bike rack is a place that a bike get put if the owner doesn't want it to be stolen or cleaned up. Bird scooters get left all over the fucking place. The closest analog is areas around big box stores where people often abandon shopping carts. Sure they're theoretically useful and private property. They're also basically random garbage for anyone who doesn't need a shopping cart at that moment. And, like Bird scooters, cities usually respond by either forcing the owner (store) to clean the things up[1] or by cleaning them up themselves[2].

[1] https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-el-cajon-aims-clea...

[2] https://www.mississauga.ca/portal/services/reportabandonedsh...

> At least the scooters are a public good.

They're not! They're private goods meant for private profit.

Not public goods in the literal economic definition, true, but there's some flexibility in common usage of this term.

Irrespective of who owns it, I can walk up to a scooter and use it. I cannot do this to your bicycle tied up to a post. From the general public's perspective, the scooter has vastly more utility than your bicycle.

A bicycle is also a public good, because it’s not a car taking up 8x the space, poisoning you, potentially running you over, changing the climate, making your president a docile sub to murderers, and annoying you wit noise.