151–160 of 243 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think some better vetting of hunters and maybe capping the amount of people for area's to hunt for them would be a start? Seems now it's a wild west when it comes to who gets at them first.
> Seems now it's a wild west when it comes to who gets at them first. Why’s that a problem for the companies though?
Doesn't seem at all out of control. Seems like an awesome idea and the process needs to be refined to dissuade bad behavior. Considering the company was founded about a year ago is probably a lot of room for improvements and innovation (and angering your contractors in the process).
Is it legal in US to use electricity at home for business purposes? In some countries that's against contract with electricity provider, as they have different tariffs for business.
Is it legal in the US to use regular cars for taxi purposes? Operating a taxi without a taxi license? Operating a hotel without a hotel license? It's companies like these, and uber, and airb&b, etc that skirt around the laws.
one of the advantages of living in the US. Nowhere in the world can a high school student earn 600$ a night by doing a simple, effortless side-activity. Even in countries like Germany max you can earn as a student would be less than a 1000$ per month.
I want to hear more about Bird's business model. How can it be worthwhile for them to give hundreds of dollars out to have the scooters charged? What do people pay for using the scooters? As per the article, it also seems incentives are not quite thought out yet, so people can grab the $20 "hard-to-find" fee reasonably easily. It sounds like you can have a friend stash them until the fee goes up, then go and collect…
They have even more expenses and infra to support. They need to install and dismantle docking stations every season, which requires cranes and trucks in 100s of locations. They have staff that drives around and picks up bikes for repairs. They have stuff driving around and re-distributing bikes when they end up in one location (eg metro after rush hour). All of the staff gets salary, of course. Many trucks and specialized trailers had to be purchased. Lots of capital needed to run something like this.
And for scooters all they had to buy was the scooters and build an app.
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...uber is successful in Europe. There are cities that banned it, but there are as many that didn't. Conversely, Uber is not very successful in South-East Asia, but not for the abundance of regulation but for the lack of it - Grab, a local copy-paste of Uber, has become so dominant that Uber had to leave most of the markets there
yeap, the ones who didn't ban are the ones who didn't apply all these useless strict regulations. In Germany, it is still not possible to take an Uber ride, for example. Besides, if it started in Europe as a small start-up it would be killed right away with tons of regulations anyways. So the only reason that you have Uber in Europe is that it has become a giant company in the US, due fertile environment, and thus co…
Doesn't seem at all out of control. Seems like an awesome idea and the process needs to be refined to dissuade bad behavior. Considering the company was founded about a year ago is probably a lot of room for improvements and innovation (and angering your contractors in the process).
Is it legal in US to use electricity at home for business purposes? In some countries that's against contract with electricity provider, as they have different tariffs for business.
Plus, an electric company might love this: more customers, with demand at off-peak hours that might even slightly reduce the need for energy storage.
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Many of these companies make a lot more sense to me if I think of the founders(+select early employees) as the company, the company as the product, the VCs as the customer, and product+customers as the sales pitch.
Thanks for this very interesting point of view, a company as a product. If you look this way, then a lot of stuff makes sense in the VC/Start-Up world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the lack of strict regulations is one of the reasons start-up businesses flourish in the US. Although I am pro-regulation in some issues, I think that European style pain-in-the-ass regulations only hinder technological advancement. Would UBER ever be successful in Europe? Nope.
...uber is successful in Europe. There are cities that banned it, but there are as many that didn't. Conversely, Uber is not very successful in South-East Asia, but not for the abundance of regulation but for the lack of it - Grab, a local copy-paste of Uber, has become so dominant that Uber had to leave most of the markets there
But Europe was an expansion market for them, after they spent a while working out early kinks in the US. I think the post you are commenting on meant success as a startup, which is very different from successfully expanding there.
I wonder if the company is asking these teens, during the registration as contractors, if they have permission from their parents to charge all those scooters at home. I can imagine several parents getting angry for excessive increments in the electricity bills every month without having a clue about their children's "business". Of course, many of them will probably find the scooters in the garage in a regular mornin…
The article says that electricity cost for charging scooters is practically nothing. If we believe it or assume that electricity cost is trivial compared to the payment, then I don't see any parent that'll say no to their nearly-adult children making money on the side by such an activity. At worst they'll ask for compensation.
The article actually qualifies that for people in large apartment buildings with a "bike room" - so essentially these people are freeloading.
Charging a Bird doesn’t require a ton of electricity, so minus the labor cost, charging a few scooters overnight is essentially free—especially if you live in a large apartment building and can do so in your bike room
Doesn't seem at all out of control. Seems like an awesome idea and the process needs to be refined to dissuade bad behavior. Considering the company was founded about a year ago is probably a lot of room for improvements and innovation (and angering your contractors in the process).
What sweetens the incentive is the "instant" cash transfer within 5 hours or so of drop-off. Mobile micro-work at scale is not only tenable. But may be the preferred operandus of labor market participants.