Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100 • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by Symbiote » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

rainyMammoth wrote: post #227

Symbiote wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone means an electric kick scooter, not the vehicles in Vietnam - those are motor scooters.

Which I also find a weird language abuse. The original meaning of "scooter" is the vehicle in Vietnam. Why did we suddenly agree to call those "kick scooters" as "scooters". This is even more confusing for companies like "scoot" that rent both "scooters" and "kick scooters"

No. The original meaning is actually a boat for use on ice and water, in 1903.

Then in 1917 it was used to refer to the children's toy.

Source: printed OED.

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

#242

Post by marrone12 » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #148

013a wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same story with their scooters IMO. I would rather walk a block or two and find a Bird than settle for a Lime. On at least one occassion my options were Grab a Lime or walk 10 blocks; I walked. Though, I feel like the reasoning is opposite for the scooters; they're absolutely huge vehicles that were clearly built to last in the harsh environments they're deployed in, and in doing so gained a ton of weight and volume.…

I have the opposite experience with the Lime scooters; they're my go-to. I've had a few duds, and of course anything on the street is subject to abuse and vandalism, but it's nice that outside of battery and motor issues, a five second inspection will give you a reliable indicator of how it will ride. All the electronic brakes I tried from any company make a very dangerous assumption that stopping time and distance d…

Same, in LA, I much prefer the Lime scooters to Bird

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

#243

Post by BrainInAJar » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

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…

There is no population that is better serviced by scooters than bicycles and better public transit

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

#244

Post by scrumbledober » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

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…

i utilized and loved the dockless scooters for the first two weeks of my last job in SF, until I found out there was a bicycle room in the garage downstairs.

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

#245

Post by icebraining » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

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…

I think it can be in some places. For example Lisbon, Portugal has decent weather all-year (not too cold, not snowy nor very rainy), lots of tourists, low labour costs; plus a fairly clean electricity supply. The only drawback is the lack of separated lanes, but most cities are working on improving that.

It's probably more niche than these companies hoped for, but I think a profitable business can be made from it.

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

#246

Post by baxtr » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #134

baxtr wrote: post #24

I counted seven different scooter companies in my town recently. The party had to end at one point...

It's just like 3D printers a few years ago. Dozens of companies spring up around the technology and gradually attrition down to a the handful of most successful ones. A more direct parallel might be all of the Hoverboard clones that flooded the market a few years ago. Whenever something is new and hot and the barrier to entry isn't too high you'll get an explosion of startups trying to make their name.

Yes, I agree. The big difference is I think: all of these seven startups needed a huuuge amount of capital to start in various cities.

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

#247

Post by CalRobert » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

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…

The environmental benefit would ultimately be in reducing car trips and allowing cities to once more be built human scale, enabled by scooter-transit-scooter trips (scooters solve the last mile problem). It would be a laudable thing for governments to support but instead the response has been deep hostility.

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

#248

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #137

munificent wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of this is because warmer climate cities have greater homeless and/or drug addict problems. Here in Seattle, I saw lots of trashed Lime bikes and lots of unsavory folks using them, often with enough stuff piled onto them to imply they had forcibly unlocked them and were using them long-term. I ran into a couple of managers at Lime once and they said vandalism and theft was a big problem.

They get junked pretty fast in LA too. Sometimes the bike or scooter will be spray painted to hide the branding, sometimes not at all. They ride well enough unpowered to be useful, at least useful enough to ride back to a better place to start taking it apart. The encampment by my parking lot has a half a dozen of these stacked up in a pile with other peoples bikes. Police don't care, and neither do the companies it…

> Police don't care

The problem right there. It doesn’t have to be that way, its a choice.

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

#249

Post by iknowstuff » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 10:32 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #236

megablast wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Human life in general causes danger, costs, polluting and is selfish. Meanwhile I find "well designed city" environment bad to my mental health. Who (or what?) is it "well designed" for?

Well your finding is wrong. Well designed cities, which are dense and encourage walking, have lots of small businesses along the sidewalk etc., lead to lower occurrence of loneliness and depression (vs. suburban areas).

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

#250

Post by ip26 » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

the_imp wrote: post #147

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…

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…

That works for mass transport like bus, tram, metro. For individual transport, it doesn't make much sense, any more than it would make sense to rent a car 24/7/365.

It would work better for individual transport if there was balanced multidirectional flow around the clock. Instead we have mostly-unidirectional flow centered around narrow times of day.