91–100 of 243 posts
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All of them are VC funded. The cash they are burning is of their investors. The business model should be getting acquired or going public.
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.
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I challenge you to find just one example of land that has been repurposed from parking spaces into something else, because of Bird or some other scooter company. ...and will this land, if it even exists, be larger than the amount of sidewalk space that Bird has repurposed into scooter parking spaces?
>I challenge you to find just one example of land that has been repurposed from parking spaces into something else, because of Bird or some other scooter company. These companies have existed for how long? The point is that if more and more people switch from using cars to using alternative transportation options we may move away from being a car centric society.
It was you who chose it as a measure of success for the company! It'd be difficult to find any examples even if the scope was widened to include bike hire schemes, which have been around for almost a decade.
I agree that it'd be great if we could switch from using cars, however I'm not sure that scooter hire companies are the way to do this. Wouldn't it be better and less wasteful if people owned scooters? The answer isn't clear, but I'm worried because of the excessive waste generated by the cycle hire companies like Mobike and Ofo. I expect we'll see the same problems with the scooter hire companies too.
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Leaseholds often excludes business activities as does home insurance.
Yes, you can't register a company at your home address, but no one will ever deny you coverage if you do clerical work at home. At least every single insurance and rental I had in UK had a special provision for this - if you need to stay at home and work remotely, that's 100% covered. It just can't be your principal place of work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of them are VC funded. The cash they are burning is of their investors. The business model should be getting acquired or going public.
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.
It's really an amazing experience. For a new user, it takes less than a minute to get started. The first time, as an engineer, I just was shocked that it was actually working so well!
I feel like it unlocks a whole new way to see the city for a lot of people.
The only thing that sucks is the battery only lasts about an hour, so it's not great for tourists who want to go on tour for a long time. Presumably a better battery would be more expensive and people would be more likely to steal it.
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>I could not imagine buttoned down European city like Vienna or even a messy one like Amsterdam allowing it) I don't really see benefit over a bike. Except that bikes don't require charging.
The main one would be that you are a pedestrian rather than a road user. People who take bikes along sidewalks and footpaths are a hazard but a scooter is less of an issue. Also, less skill to ride and less risk.
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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.
In general business tariffs are lower, so I don't see the problem.
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Why? Does electricity used by cars have more externalities than electricity used by a washing machine?
No, but at the moment(at least over here in UK) the tax on petrol and diesel covers road building/maintenance for the entire country. With this tax slowly disappearing, we will have to find another way to tax people who use the roads, and the best way to do that is to tax the fuel they use as it's directly proportional to their use. Same reason why heating/farming oil doesn't have this tax, even though it's technical…
Petrol and VED raises £33b a year, but total road spending (including local councils) is under £10b.
The solution to rationing road usage and paying for their use is road charging (with heavier vehicles paying proportionally more based on axel weight, and different charges depending how congested the roads are) which should pay for the maintenance of the roads, new road building, and renting the land to have the roads on.
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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.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you can't register a company at your home address, but no one will ever deny you coverage if you do clerical work at home. At least every single insurance and rental I had in UK had a special provision for this - if you need to stay at home and work remotely, that's 100% covered. It just can't be your principal place of work.
What kind of insurance are you talking about here? Wouldn't increased presence in the home make any mishaps less likely?