Have been, but not anymore. At least here.

Now you have to take a photograph when you end a ride to prove that you did it responsible. There are many areas that are marked as slow-speed and many areas that are marked as no-park. The most central parts are entirely no-park with exceptions for dedicated bicycle-parkings.

Scooters that are misparked can be confiscated and the company needs to pay a fine to get it back.

It took a little while but now it seems to be respected by the vast majority and it has become a decent addition to other public transportation.

And I say this as someone who did despise them in the beginning.

Lots of other areas to discuss though, such as whether they last long enough to make environmental sense etc.

This is absolutely not true; look at any cities around Europe, or at Japanese cities, neither of those are "car oriented city with gigantic box stores surrounded by lakes of parking lots".

In the case of Japan, life develops around the train stations indeed, where all the shops and entertainment is, and between those stations are the residential areas, so scooters are perfect here.

In European cities (smaller) it's normally organized in rings, where most things you'd want to do are within the city center, or around large neighborhoods but also in circles (larger). So you can take a train/bus/cycle/scooter to the center, then going to the different places either walking or with the scooter.

They were talking scooters, they are a huge pain in the ass with people leaving it in the middle of sidewalk, riding like maniacs, often drunk (especially tourists).

This is a problem with rental scooters but not private ownership.