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Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

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Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#201

Post by rory096 »

Hasz wrote: post #127

This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed. 9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline. For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of…

>9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move.

I don't. 9/10 times, despite zero net displacement my commutes are asymmetrical — on my way there I'm in a rush, but on the way back I'm not. So I'll often take a high cost, high speed option like a scooter towards a destination, then take a more leisurely, generally free option like walking or transit back home. As a bonus, I never have to deal with storing my vehicle while I'm at my destination, or with taking it with me if I add an intermediate stop nearby before returning home.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#202

Post by Hasz »

wwweston wrote: post #166
Hasz wrote: post #127

This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed. 9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline. For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of…

This is a bit like saying hotels are obsolete because most of the time you live in the same place and apartments make more sense. The value proposition of a scooter service is ad hoc last mile transport where you don’t have to have brought the scooter with you to use it. There may still be issues with the model. It might be that isn’t a demand profile that has the right scale to support much of a business (but could…

I suppose, but any isomorphism has its limits.

For me, a scooter is much more affordable than say, a hotel. I am willing to pay a small premium in rent over buying the hotel for the convenience and flexibility of not having to own a hotel.

I am fortunate enough that there's no way a lime makes any sort of financial sense for commuting last mile in a place I live. I can buy a scooter for $500; I will break even on Lime/Bird in less than 3 months. For tourists, great, for denizens, not so much.

The simple fact is, unless you want to pay for the luxury of having to walk to a scooter you pilot yourself, owning your own things has always made more sense. The ability to semi-summon an object on command is great when you need, and can afford, the option. However, we should be optimizing infrastructure for everyone, not just those who can pay for it.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#203

Post by mumblemumble »

bobthepanda wrote: post #152
mumblemumble wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see personal e-scooters as being a great alternative to cars for short trips such as commuting less than 5-ish km to work, or taking the kids to school. However, I still think bicycles are vastly preferable. With a pannier rack you get quite a bit more cargo space, and in the winter, the fact that you're physically exerting yourself helps to keep you warm, which makes for a more comfortable and pleasant trip. A…

The major issue for me with biking, particularly e-biking, is that it can be very expensive if your bike is stolen. Secure bike parking is hard to come by in many places, and even secured bike parking can be broken into. In my city it's also very hilly, so I've taken a rideshare bike down the hill but not up it. Docking also solves this problem, but the problem with docks is that they have to go through whatever NIMB…

Dockless scooters are also much more immediately annoying to a lot more people - basically, a few people ride them, and everyone else trips over and/or fears getting hit by them on the sidewalks.

By contrast, at least in the early stages, rideshare was almost invisible to anyone who wasn't actively using it. That left a much longer runway for the "break rules and then get forgiveness" strategy.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#204

Post by NhanH »

Hasz wrote: post #161
the_imp wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole model of needing to own your own transportation devices is flawed. 9/10 times, I'm moving from one location with many other people in it to another location with many other people. I would prefer not needing to own any medium in order to move between them, but instead be able to use a public service to do so. Bus, tram, metro, citybike, scooter. I'd really rather not own stuff with really high capital costs…

Ah, but public transit is inherently the slowest option. I have no desire to make 10 stops before I get where I'm going. I also have zero desire to rent my modes, as that encourages literally rent seeking behavior. Either we need to figure out how to drop off and pickup passengers at speed, or penalize individualized transport that is space inefficient (like cars). Good luck pursuing the latter in the US; punitive me…

Scooter is a horrible horrible mean of transporation for the mass.

I lives in Vietnam, where scooters are dominant. It is even less compact than car on the road.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#205

Post by IshKebab »

Hasz wrote: post #127

This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed. 9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline. For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of…

Err, obviously. They're targeting the 1/10 times where you want to make a trip and don't have a vehicle with you.

Taxis exist despite most people owning a car.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#206

Post by megablast »

mantas wrote: post #192
zymhan wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this refutes the idea that you don't need to own a car in a well-designed city

Don't need , but it's still damn handy. And a "well-designed city" is usually based on assumption that all people are +/- identical. Well, guess what, different people have different preferences... Source: european

Sure, but also incredibly dangerous, costly, polluting and selfish.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#207

Post by Hasz »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #199
jtcruthers wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get from point A to point B without walking half a mile and waiting 10 minutes for a bus to go a quarter the speed to a stop half a mile from your destination. I'm sure a lot of people want a car so they don't have to expose their groceries or small children to the disgusting mess that is public transportation in the vast majority of (American) cities.

The comment I was responding to was saying everyone wants to own their method of transportation. I'm not asking why you would want to drive - I'm asking why you would choose to own a car if there was an alternate world where all the other cars in the city were available to use on demand.

I mean, if they were free, I see your point. But they can't be, which implies paying someone else to do the maintenance, and distribution, plus a fee on top of that for their time. You can scale it any which way (or dodge the second bit and call them independent contractors), but it doesn't change the unit economics nearly enough imo.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#208

Post by [deleted] »

logifail wrote: post #167
mumblemumble wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see personal e-scooters as being a great alternative to cars for short trips such as commuting less than 5-ish km to work, or taking the kids to school. However, I still think bicycles are vastly preferable. With a pannier rack you get quite a bit more cargo space, and in the winter, the fact that you're physically exerting yourself helps to keep you warm, which makes for a more comfortable and pleasant trip. A…

> I can see personal e-scooters as being a great alternative to cars for [...] taking the kids to school If it's close to 5km, are you really going to take the kids on scooters? If it's closer to 1km, how about simply walking? Reality check: we have two (of three) kids in school, their walk to school is just over half a mile, they both walk more or less every single day, in summer and winter and in the rain and the s…

[deleted]

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#209

Post by IshKebab »

john_moscow wrote: post #49
bransonf wrote: post #42

Does anyone actually think this is a profitable market? Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive. It’s a seasonal business. Vandalism/abuse is fairly common. In terms of any environmental benefit, I highly suspect more gasoline is being consumed to collect and distribute scooters than the offset of a few last mile transports. I suspect the cost to the consumer would have to double for it to m…

>Why did the VCs value these as billion dollar companies? Desperation? Because VCs get paid from selling the shares to the public. So as long as a general unsophisticated investor is expected to buy in, it's a good deal for a VC, even if the underlying business model is laughable.

Most companies only go public when they are profitable.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#210

Post by ibeckermayer »

Reedx wrote: post #64
bransonf wrote: post #42

Does anyone actually think this is a profitable market? Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive. It’s a seasonal business. Vandalism/abuse is fairly common. In terms of any environmental benefit, I highly suspect more gasoline is being consumed to collect and distribute scooters than the offset of a few last mile transports. I suspect the cost to the consumer would have to double for it to m…

It seems that a lot of VC is a multivariate ponzi scheme of sorts, which might explain some of it. If they're making fees regardless, then they just need to show/push fast initial growth to attract more layers of investment and it doesn't necessarily need to make long term sense. Chamath Palihapitiya describes this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVVsdlHslfI

Wow, thank you. This guy decisively describes what I’ve been yammering to my friends about since moving to SF and learning about this industry.
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