Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#131

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

jonlucc wrote: post #61

wpietri wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $1400/month number strikes me as dubious. They mention the charger earns $30-50/day. Assuming a standard 22-day work month, $1400 would have to be $63/day. A more realistic number seems to be $40 * 22 days, or $880/month. Which is not a lot of money in the expensive cities Lime is active in.

They were active in at least one Midwest city (Indianapolis) until last week, so $880 might not be a full-time job there, but would be a very nice supplementary income.

I cannot imagine a VC-funded gig-economy company failing to notice that if they can pay people $x in SF, they can probably pay people $0.3x to $0.5x in Indianapolis. [1]

[1] https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/indianapolis-in/sa...

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#132

Post by arosier » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

dc_gregory wrote: post #102

arosier wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a charger - made $11k in a month. Only had a month until SF shut them down. I imagine payouts will get compressed as the market matures. Earnings are also highly dependent upon the scooter density of the area you service and the amount of charger competition in that area.

Interested to know how you managed that; a specific technique or someone helping you or some such?

This was all on my own. Being in a central location in a high density environment helps a lot. After that it's just good old fashion operational efficiencies and hustle.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#133

Post by tomjakubowski » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 12:27 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #123

walshemj wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your probably not the market in London its mostly commuters where $80 is trivial compared to the several k that your season ticket

You could just buy a bike for 80 bucks (albeit a poor quality one).

And then you have to keep it somewhere whenever you ride it some place.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#134

Post by KozmoNau7 » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 12:40 AM UTC

whelchel wrote: post #106

bit_logic wrote: post #103

I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…

There is some merit to that idea but I think you may be missing a few things. Often, parking is placed between a bike lane and the side walk. Bikes need to be able to cross lanes, often in cities, to make left turns. How can they do that when they're up on a curb to start, but additionally, with potential street parking in the way? I think technically in many jurisdictions, bikes are to be treated as vehicles. Whethe…

Put the parking between the road and the bike lane/sidewalk instead. That's how most city streets are laid out in Copenhagen, af it provides a good safety buffer of parked cars.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#135

Post by dang » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

txsh wrote: post #85

edaemon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are at least parked in designated spots/areas. Dockless bikes and scooters don't have a designated space to park in; they have to be left on the sidewalk, and they can be dropped anywhere.

Sorry. I don’t want to abandon my mode of transportation to appease you OCD. Get over it.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#136

Post by megy » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

rockostrich wrote: post #59

tingletech wrote: post #38

These scooters are a menace in Oakland -- people are riding them down crowded sidewalks at 20 MPH

I don't know about Oakland, but in Boston these wouldn't be legal to ride on the sidewalk. Hell, they're barely legal to ride in the bike lane (only motorized vehicles that can't exceed 35 mph and that make a motor smaller than a certain size). Combine that with the fact that most riders won't be wearing helmets and it's a potentially deadly accident waiting to happen.

Well off course, anything near a road is deadly. Just standing on the side of the road can be deadly. Anything around cars at all is incredibly dangerous. It is absolutely insane we allow cars anywhere near people.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#137

Post by tmh79 » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

foobar1962 wrote: post #111

From the article: >Lime said its service, which lets customers rent scooters scattered around cities and leave them on the sidewalk for the next person to pick up I now look for a "Tragedy of the Common" errors in business models. That's it right there: they freely exploit a public resource without care or consequence. The fallacy is evident when we ask "What if everybody does this?"

this is basically exactly what cars and on street parking is...

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#138

Post by megy » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #104

blhack wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a boondoggle. I rarely see any birds, lime bikes, orange bikes, ofos, etc. parked in places other than off to the side of the sidewalk, or in a bike rack. When I do, I move them. Most people, generally speaking, are good people. They put bikes where they're supposed to be, they put scooters where they're supposed to be etc. It isn't just enlightened tech commenters who know that a bike should go in a bik…

In Melbourne, our dockless bike provider, oBike, had to pull out because the council threatened them with fines for littering. People just couldn't help throwing the bikes on train tracks, or in the river, or in trees, or basically anywhere that wasn't a bike rack. I don't think I ever saw an oBike in a bike rack.

This is not true. They came to an arrangements with the Melbourne city council, and hired people to go around and tidy it up.

They pulled out because too many people were dumping bikes in rivers and train tracks, and they weren't making enough money. They were reasonably popular.

Melbourne is a car addicted city though, and it is difficult to get anyone here to see an alternative.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#139

Post by cncrnd » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

bit_logic wrote: post #103

I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…

Yeah, I don't understand how cyclists can put so much trust in every single car that drives by them. All it takes is one distracted driver and you get serious injury or worse.

Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime

#140

Post by azernik » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #134

whelchel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some merit to that idea but I think you may be missing a few things. Often, parking is placed between a bike lane and the side walk. Bikes need to be able to cross lanes, often in cities, to make left turns. How can they do that when they're up on a curb to start, but additionally, with potential street parking in the way? I think technically in many jurisdictions, bikes are to be treated as vehicles. Whethe…

Put the parking between the road and the bike lane/sidewalk instead. That's how most city streets are laid out in Copenhagen, af it provides a good safety buffer of parked cars.

Also how Oakland does it on Telegraph. San Francisco has switched to this solution on some streets (Folsom and Howard).

This doesn't include putting the bikes on the same grade as the sidewalk, but that's a relatively minor difference once you already have parked cars separating you from car traffic.