251–260 of 321 posts
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It's not littering. You know this.
Honestly I don't know. It feels like littering. If the company suddenly closed - what now? Presumably they're unusable without the backend.
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Same with home renovation / remodeling / addition / construction permits. If your design meets code and zoning, it should automatically get approved. None of this nimby-neighbor-going-to-the-planning-meeting-and-getting-your-project-cancelled-because-your-chimney-will-cast-a-shadow-on-their-backyard bullshit.
That’s called by-right and lots of cities (maybe all? Not sure if it’s a local/state/federal thing) have that. That doesn’t stop NIMBYism (all you have to do is downzone), but for areas that are reasonably densely zoned, you don’t need any variances for projects that conform to zoning ordinances. The real issue with NIMBYs is how restrictive zoning is. Sure, you can build anything you want if it conforms, but good lu…
What is preventing companies from moving to less expensive cities? By the free market logic, it should decrease demand/rent in hot cities, and provide these companies more affordable workers.
At which point is the housing pressure strong enough so that jobs start moving elsewhere, and market effects between cities or state come into play (i.e. if a city "choose" to limit housing it will limit it's economic potential compared to others)?
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The 50 day lifespan seems too low. Even if the batteries can only survive ~50 charges, the rest of the scooter will outlive the battery. Revising that number upwards skyrockets the ROI figure...
The scooters that were in SF were certainly not surviving 50 days. They were 90% broken and not because of the battery.
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It's not illegal to buy your own electric bike or scooter and ride it around SF. Not like SF is banning electric bike manufacturers. So your analogy is pretty bad.
I disagree - the analogy seems appropriate. The poster was comparing the features of each vehicle in use, disregarding the source (manufactured or ride-shares). Similarly, shouldn’t regulations not look too far past the actual impact of an entity?
There's also a difference between people who own their own scooters vs heavily VC funded firms who want to dump as many of their scooters onto the streets as possible to target high growth. An individual owner has the incentive to keep their vehicle off the streets since otherwise people can easily steal them. This is not the same as these large firms, who have GPS trackers on each scooter. Plus, each scooter is so cheaply made that a loss is not majorly important since they have a ton of money in the bank -- each scooter is peanuts compared to the salaries of their software engineers. Individual scooter owners are much more price sensitive and generally tend not to throw their scooter onto the streets.
I think another argument is one of public space. The sidewalk is a public space that I pay taxes to maintain. Why should a low-revenue growth-hacking startup be allowed to use the public space -- which SF citizens pay to maintain -- for free? I'm a pretty staunch capitalist, but this seems like a "privatize the gains, socialize the losses" scenario.
I would be okay if either 1) startups who wanted to deploy scooters faced heavy taxes for certain violations or 2) they proposed concrete plans to explain how they will not clutter sidewalks. The San Francisco government seems to be doing the latter.
TLDR: Incentives are different between individuals and VC funded firms. Also, don't use public spaces to growth-hack your startup. Or if you do, either 1) respect other people who use them or 2) pay fines / more taxes to compensate the city for extra upkeep costs and to compensate other citizens for inconvenience.
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Use of powered vehicles on sidewalks is illegal, as is blocking entrances with vehicles. The city accused Bird and Lime of doing both.
That is a dumb law that was made when motorcycles were the only vehicles competing inside walks. There is very little traffic on sidewalks and using it for pedestrians and scooters and bicycles is much better. Especially considering that cyclists can pause or go around pedestrians when necessary. Having an absolute law rather than an adaptive is not useful to the community.
lol. i guess the plebs who can't afford uber don't count as people. SF sidewalks have seem pretty packed to me whenever I am there.
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That is disingenuous FUD. Cities are totally willing to work with companies if they provide a net benefit. Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy? What they say "wtf, no?" to is companies treating public good and spaces like sidewalks as something they can just offload all of their costs onto, without ever asking permission. Look at t…
You honestly believe that had Bird, initially an unheard of company, gone to say, the city of Los Angeles and said "We'd like to put scooters everywhere, is that cool?" They'd have said "sure"? I think that's incredibly naive. The absolute best outcome for Bird would have been the city saying "you can put them in designated scooter areas, and they have to be docked in designated scooter areas". And that would have tu…
Yes? I'd assume it would take finding someone friendly who works for the city, getting them interested in the concept, and getting their help and support in navigating the process, but yes, I'd absolutely expect the city to say "sure", maybe "sure, with caveats". Hell, maybe the city folks could find a way to finance half your deployment with taxpayer money. It's not like city administration exists only to sit on their collective butt and default-deny every request.
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That is disingenuous FUD. Cities are totally willing to work with companies if they provide a net benefit. Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy? What they say "wtf, no?" to is companies treating public good and spaces like sidewalks as something they can just offload all of their costs onto, without ever asking permission. Look at t…
> Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy? If it's risky proposition, then yes, it's better to refuse. If he accepts it and things go wrong, it'll be blamed on him, and he might get kicked out. If he refuses, the worst that could happen is it could succeed somewhere else. In which case, he could then reconsider. The only time where it…
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I do. The government originally instituted the taxi medallion system to protect riders from predatory taxis, but it ended up granting a monopoly to the predatory taxis and locking out potential competition. The free market has worked out much better. Uber/Lyft have to provide competitive service at a low price. If they stop doing this, they too will be replaced.
>The free market has worked out much better. It's like everyone who preaches this line knows so little history or wants people to forget[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_(horse)
In most situations, a process that allows for more freedom is the solution. I do not count corporations as people and as far as I'm concerned, they should be required to be far more open about operations than they are currently. I'm also not a fan of IP laws generally speaking and think they should all be scaled back.
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You're phrasing it as if it's "revenge" rather than the city looking out for its citizen's best interests. If this company has been willing to flaunt the rules, who's to say it won't again? That isn't "revenge," it seems more like using common sense.
Then I vote to give them a 2nd chance and see how it goes. Its easy to pull their permit in the future if needed.
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>ask for forgiveness rather than permission Do you genuinely think it's good for society when businesses do this?
I don’t see how anyone could believe that it’s never good for society when businesses do this.