Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#11

Post by toufka » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

I suspect it's really good signal for setting up or optimizing routes. Those bikes show very clear underserved endpoints that might otherwise be hard to discover. Might just be a cheap and interesting peek down-market on their geographic data-layer.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#12

Post by kasey_junk » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

sagichmal wrote: post #9

saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

Data point of one here, but docked bike share programs are a novelty for me, maybe useful on occasional weekends, but dockless makes it viable for replacing almost all use of public transit and ride sharing, including (especially) daily commute. Orders of magnitude difference in my personal usage.

Curious why? Just availability?

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#13

Post by dawhizkid » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

Awesome! Having used Jump this weekend, I wouldn't say dockless is the main value prop to me as a customer - it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike. Going medium distances (1-2 miles) and up and down steep hills in SF was a breeze. If you're commuting, it's "sweat free."

IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more than 80% in many cities now) for short to med distances that powered bikes has become more and more appealing.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#14

Post by ggregoire » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

> The consumer benefits seem great

How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#15

Post by chrischen » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

I tried dockless bikes in Taiwan and while being able to park anywhere is grrat initally, the chance your bike gets taken, the difficulty in locating a bike due to bariable locatioms and inaccurate GPS, really dirty bikes, are all huge problems.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#16

Post by gervase » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

I can't speak to the complexity of managing a dockless system (and in particular, their profitability), but from a UX perspective, it's a total game-changer.

In my city, we started with docked, but after a dockless company arrived, literally no-one uses the docked bikes - why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit?

The prices are already so low that I can't really see them being able to compete on price, so the only differentiating factor is ease of use, which dockless will always win on.

Also, in reply to a sibling comment, we have a pretty serious bike theft problem here, but they mostly don't bother with the dockless bikes except as a mode of transportation. Speculatively, perhaps most bike theft profits are in the gray market (i.e. Craigslist), where these highly-recognizable bikes can't be unloaded?

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#17

Post by Parsnip1 » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #12

sagichmal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point of one here, but docked bike share programs are a novelty for me, maybe useful on occasional weekends, but dockless makes it viable for replacing almost all use of public transit and ride sharing, including (especially) daily commute. Orders of magnitude difference in my personal usage.

Curious why? Just availability?

The only times I've used a bike share, it was because I was walking somewhere and happened to pass a dockless bike that seemed like a really good idea to just rent and use right away. These were invariable in places that would not have had a docking station.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#18

Post by jseliger » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

dawhizkid wrote: post #13

Awesome! Having used Jump this weekend, I wouldn't say dockless is the main value prop to me as a customer - it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike. Going medium distances (1-2 miles) and up and down steep hills in SF was a breeze. If you're commuting, it's "sweat free." IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more th…

it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike

There are many comments online about how awesome electric bikes are and many skeptical responses. I think the basic divide comes down to one thing: Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point.

There are finally some reputable electric bikes available for around $1,000 (https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed), but most people want transportation without having to deal with hassle on either end.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#19

Post by username223 » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

"Yet in recent months, Dallas has become ground zero for a nascent national bike-share war, as five startups armed with hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars have blanketed the city with at least 18,000 bikes." -- https://archive.is/kczBY

It sounds like boom times for Dallas scrap dealers. No one who has ever been to Dallas could ever think this makes sense: Dallas and Fort Worth are about 80 km in diameter, and unpleasantly hot and humid for about half the year. No one wants to rent electric pseudo-scooters there.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#20

Post by barkingcat » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #15

saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

I tried dockless bikes in Taiwan and while being able to park anywhere is grrat initally, the chance your bike gets taken, the difficulty in locating a bike due to bariable locatioms and inaccurate GPS, really dirty bikes, are all huge problems.

Can you bring a bike lock and just lock the dockless bike?