The issue is that the Lime-like business model of scattering around e-scooters is fundamentally broken. They don't operate between pickup/dropoff spots nor can that be enforced. They intentionally expect these scooters to be dropped off in random places by riders. It's economically unfeasible to have employees constantly move around cities to gather them, and they'd have to license and pay for the occupation of public space to have dedicated dropoff/pickup spots.

The only shot at profitability of e-scooter sharing services depends on their ability to abuse public space without cost and dump all externalities on the communities they operate.