
San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft - virtica
https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-denies-scooter-permits-for-bird-lime-uber-and-lyft-1535669924
======
quotemstr
Business permits should be shall-issue: if an applicant adheres to a set of
rules known in advance, the city ought to have no power to deny its permit
application.

Want to limit the number of something? Fine. Auction off medallions or
something in a transparent, open way. Don't pick and choose businesses the way
SF busybodies do.

San Francisco has severe and worsening problems primarily due to rampant
interference in the operation of the free market. The city keeps doubling down
on this interference every time someone, somewhere, tries to find a way around
the city's thicket of rules.

~~~
LeoPanthera
The companies in question already had a history of operating illegally in San
Francisco. I don't think it's fair to dismiss that as "picking and choosing".
Dumping those scooters over the city is effectively littering.

Business should be able to operate freely, but they should not be able to
break the law until someone catches them.

~~~
Meekro
If I'd started a scooter company before scooter companies were a thing, went
to any city and asked for permission, they would have said "wtf? no."
(assuming they answered my petition at all) and that would have been the end
of it.

The only reason we're here arguing about this is companies like Bird chose to
ask for forgiveness rather than permission in the past.

~~~
lovich
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 the Boston area with Bird right now. Bird just started dumping their
scooters on sidewalks, got asked to stop by the towns, got told to stop by the
towns, and then finally stopped only because the towns were confiscating all
of the litter Bird left around and the number of locals who started destroying
the scooters because they were abandoned property and none of them took
lightly to companies dumping their shit on public grounds.

There is an argument to be made about how their is corruption in governments
and they will push back on startups even though they are better for society,
or how regulations strangle change and smaller firms. That argument doesn't
apply to companies worth billions like Uber or Bird. They are just trying to
break the law and offload costs to society, and then trying to claim it's
disruption so they can tap into that feeling of doing good and changing the
world that SV used to have 15 years ago

~~~
darawk
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 turned them into just another e-bike:
utterly useless and used by no-one.

Now, there's absolutely a reasonable conversation to be had about corporate
over-reach, responsibility, and externalities here. However, let's not pretend
that this could realistically have been accomplished any other way.

~~~
Someone
_”We 'd like to put scooters everywhere, is that cool?”_

That would have gotten a no, but _”we would like to do an experiment
decreasing road congestion”_ could have gotten them a yes _and_ a subsidy for
running the experiment.

And yes, that “yes” would have had strings attached, even if it weren’t
subsidized, but that’s normal for anthingmyhea affects shared space. If a
company goes to the city and says “we would like to park our cars on the
street instead of on our expensive parking lot” or “we would like to semi-
permanently occupy the space in front of or shops”, would you expect the city
to say “yes”, too?

~~~
nojvek
Yeah but an experiment wouldn’t have gotten them those fat VC dollars.

Fat VC dollars come when they think you’ll dominate the world of scooters and
put them everywhere. If you spend some of those millions fighting city
governments so be it. Bribe them, make them fail elections, find loopholes,
extend court trials forever. This companies have almost an unlimited supply of
money.

------
throwaway66666
I recently went south to LA and SD, and the scooters are awesome there. I saw
them mostly near the beach, and 0 thrown in the middle of the pavement, none
blocking exits or riding them obnoxiously. They even have scooter police that
will give you a ticket if you go too fast (I am not saying that as necessarily
a good thing, just that they seem to have their stuff together as cities). For
the first time I actually made an account and hopped on one of them.

However, in SF they overdid it. I don't know if SF residents got replaced by a
bunch of self-entitled nerdy manchildren, but holy hell they were obnoxious.
You would see 5-6 of them blocking the entrance to a restaurant (at
anchorsteam brewery tap room especially). Thrown down in the middle of the
pavement. People riding them on the sidewalk yelling "GOTTA GO FAST", going
somewhat fast (at least have some dignity and dress like Sonic the hedgehog if
you 're gonna do that). Think of an 80s action movie where the punks or hell's
angels type of gangs run amok in the city, but it's dudes wearing startup
t-shirts on electric scooters instead. Anyway, I 'm not a nimby but their
presence in SF really left a sour taste.

But after seeing them in LA and San Diego I am convinced they can work super
nicely if a little bit of common sense is applied. Maybe the SF populous is
early adopters and jumped on the latest trend with too much passion, or maybe
those companies put on the streets too many units. I don't know, but it can be
done right and I 'd really like to see them back.

~~~
noobermin
They aren't going anywhere. People are just mad their favorite service didn't
get chosen.

~~~
throwaway66666
Who cares though, they are all the same. (I forgot which company's I used,
until I checked my phone now to see the app). They really didn't work much on
brand recognition, I 'm surprised people have favorites

~~~
woolvalley
I'm mostly upset by the # limits. It's not enough for the entire market.

Also I feel like some of the bad behavior was vandalism by haters. Who the
hell would put black sharpie on the QR codes or shit on scooters themselves?
Probably not someone who uses them.

~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
The sharpie thing might actually be someone trying to "reserve" a scooter for
themselves. (Take a picture of the code before making it unreadable, then the
scooter always stays wherever they left it.)

------
andr
SFMTA has published the detailed feedback[1] and summary ratings[2] for each
petition. Although the actual applications are not published, it really looks
like Bird did a poor job on paper. For example, most of the companies relied
on swipe-through screens in apps to remind people to use helmets, which the
SFMTA deems insufficient. I have to agree, as I have rarely seen someone on a
scooter with a helmet.

[1] [https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-
docume...](https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-
documents/2018/08/sfmta_scooter_applicant_response_letters_08.30.2018.pdf)

[2] [https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-
docume...](https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-
documents/2018/08/application_rating_summary_table_08.320.2018.pdf)

Also, note that Scoot already has an arrangement with the city for the red
electric mopeds they rent out.

~~~
wellyeah
I ride them daily, and I don't want to use a helmet. I feel that I and I alone
am responsible for my own safety. It's not like other people are going to get
hurt because I'm not wearing a helmet.

~~~
i386
You’re not going to wear a helmet because the government asks you to wear one?
Wow, that is an incredibly stupid attitude to have.

------
WisNorCan
I generally away from regulation, but let me articulate the pro-regulation
argument.

Markets that are important (like transportation) and have network effects need
to be regulated. A monopoly with Uber and/or Lyft dominating local
transportation is not good for consumers or cities in the long-term.

Cities should take control of their transportation and ensure competition by
managing allocation of capacity. I think the best parallel is managing of
spectrum in telecom to ensure competition.

~~~
austenallred
San Francisco just granted two companies a monopoly when previously there were
multiple companies fighting for the same business. That’s the exact opposite
of what you’re advocating.

~~~
WisNorCan
VCs would not be giving billion $ valuations if they thought this will be a
highly competitive market with many players. Everyone is betting on a winner
takes most market.

~~~
twblalock
I’ve noticed that a lot of “natural” monopolies are regulated under the
assumption they will become monopolies but before they actually do.

I suspect a lot of that regulation has been wrong, monopolies would not have
emerged, and we would be better off regulating only the monopolies that
actually exist.

I’d rather see the scooter companies fight it out than have the city
government pick winners and losers when the industry is only a few months old
and multiple viable competitors already exist.

------
throwaway4Later
Interviewed with Scoot last month on Howard St.

The entire experience felt like a Monty Python interview- engineers driven on
a death march to get their stuff done and interview an endless stream of
qualified candidates, all the while management isn't ready to hire, but still
bringing on a torrent of candidates.

The interviewing process was one of the most disorganized and chaotic I've
ever gone through. Pair programming exercises scheduled without working
computers, that kind of thing.

I never wish any company to fail, but...

------
salawat
Considering San Fran is already famous for hilariously spiteful and terrible
zoning/real estate development practices, it isn't exactly surprising. Are the
companies who got permits local? That may have factored into it.

Also, considering the sheer hatred these companies and their business model
inspire in me, I can't say it doesn't fill me with glee.

~~~
sagarm
Uber, Lyft, Lime (rejected), Skip and Scoot (accepted) are all SF companies.

Bird is based in Santa Monica.

------
Felz
Is a license for 2500 scooters worth much, startup wise? Pulling numbers from
this:

[https://medium.com/13-notes/unit-economics-of-the-bird-
scoot...](https://medium.com/13-notes/unit-economics-of-the-bird-
scooters-f1c971a31574)

To maintain a presence of 2500 scooters for a year, you'd need 2500 * (365
days / 50 days (scooter lifespan)) = 18.2k scooters. That's 18.2k * $600
(lifetime cost) = $10.9 million in capital.

Each of these scooters generating $14 in revenue a day is $12.7 million in
revenue a year, for a profit of $1.8 million and a 16% return on capital. If
we assume a San Francisco quota was rolled out to the entire country, that'd
be (325 million / 880k) * 1.8 million = $664 million in profit, at best.

~~~
cjlars
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...

~~~
fipple
The scooters that were in SF were certainly not surviving 50 days. They were
90% broken and not because of the battery.

~~~
rorykoehler
This is a teething issue that will be fixed by iterative design processes as
they learn which parts get stressed by this type of usage.

~~~
fipple
If the scooter wars are driven by scooter design the winners are going to be
very different than Bird and Lime which are logistics companies.

~~~
rorykoehler
I agree. It will take a combination of logistics and design. Ofo are winning
that race in the bike space but mobike aren't far behind. Here in Singapore
obike got it woefully wrong. It was obvious that whoever purchased their bikes
is not a cyclist because the bikes were terrible. Obike went out of business.

------
afriday11
Can we just ban cars in SF while we are at it?

People drive them with a vengeance, clutter up the streets while they are in
parking mode, and are a general eyesore.

~~~
almost_usual
So ban Uber and Lyft?

~~~
stale2002
I'd prefer banning personal cars (within city limits), as those take up a
massive amount of space, with regards to parking.

Taxis on the other hand, have usage rates of ~50 percent. Whereas personal
cars, parked on the side of the road, are only being used ~5 % of the time,
and the other 95% is wasted.

~~~
almost_usual
How about public transit? Don’t understand the argument for banning personal
cars but not Uber, Lyft, and Taxi.

~~~
afriday11
Personal cars spend most of their time parked on the side of the road using up
valuable real-estate.

Transportation services like Uber or taxis use the road to move people around
and don't take up as much space as personal cars. Public transit and bikes are
much more space and energy efficient, though don't get the investment they
need to work for most people.

US cities are optimized for sprawl and personal car centric transportation,
which makes it annoying that new ideas like these scooter startups (which are
actually pretty great when you try them) are blocked by officials in favor of
a system that is expensive and sub-optimal for the health of society.

------
djrogers
This really comes off as spiteful and childish. Bird and Lime didn't come kiss
the ring before daring to provide services to the residents of San Francisco,
so they get kicked to the curb in favor of a couple of companies who's timing
hadn't yet angered the City.

~~~
draw_down
I just don’t understand this attitude that these companies are owed their
ability to do business, particularly when it involves just dumping these
things on the public sidewalks.

~~~
djrogers
Their customers dumped them on the sidewalks, and it seems to be a San
Francisco thing - if you go to other cities with active scooter sharing, you
don't see this behavior. Of course you also don't see peopel dfecating on the
street in most other cities either, so San Francisco is a special kind of
special.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/DbXBe](http://archive.is/DbXBe)

~~~
LeoPanthera
I wish HN disallowed posts to paywalled articles.

~~~
dang
If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the
thread.

This is in the FAQ at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

------
jtokoph
Scoot and Skip will receive buy out offers from all 4 companies very soon
then.

------
oh-kumudo
Seems like the Scooter is not popular and only useful for a niche segment of
the population.

The bike sharing business has caused a hazard in places like China, because of
the unrestricted dumping. So there is definitely a point that government needs
to chime in and do some stuff.

~~~
s0rce
If they are not popular why is there a need to regulate them, they will simply
go out of business. Also, I see people riding them all the time in the East
Bay.

~~~
noobermin
They are popular amongst those who ride, not all people who use the sidewalk
and street, which is a larger segment of the population. Might as well ask why
we need smoking areas in buildings.

------
incadenza
I’m confused. My sense is that the approach here should have been to put
forward a set of regulations and enforcement, and then open up the market. If
one of the companies violates the rules, then obviously ban them.

------
vermontdevil
Interesting. Both Bird and Lime were recently approved to come back in
Indianapolis after being asked to leave. The council wanted to re-evaluate the
whole concept and set up some rules, fees, etc.

Then they allowed these two companies to return. [1]

1\. [https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/08/28/dockless-
elec...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/08/28/dockless-electric-
scooters-return-indianapolis-september-4/1040280002/)

------
jonthepirate
Can anybody name two companies which are about to get acquired? Anybody at
all?

------
bfung
Thank you SF. Too many scooters littered on too many corners of streets -
makes walking near places like hospitals quite the hazard. The litters don't
seem to care since they're not in the area.

------
aviv
Not to worry, these companies that were left out will be let in next year once
they pony up the correct bribe amount to the relevant decision maker.

------
onetimemanytime
So they want only x number of scooters in the streets. Fine, but the
bureaucrats are picking winners, when they should let the consumers choose.

~~~
emodendroket
And how do you propose they do that?

~~~
jamiequint
How about setting base rules and auctioning off permits that require annual
renewal rather than playing king-maker. Or even better, set base rules for
which the companies must comply then allow all companies to compete and fine
those companies that don't comply.

------
fipple
Uber and Lime will but Skip and Scoot this month.

------
singularity2001
Is that good because of less monopolization?

------
tzs
One reason it might make sense to have a service like this provided by just a
two or three companies in a given city instead of a large number is
verification and enforcement of safety regulations such as requirements that
the companies keep the scooters well maintained.

Two ways come to mind for a city to verify that a company is handling such
things properly.

First, the city can have auditors regularly examine the internal operations of
the company, talk to employees, and review consumer feedback.

Second, the city can pull a random sample of the company's scooters off the
street and have city mechanics inspect them.

The number of scooters you have to examine from a company to determine if it
is meeting maintenance requirements depends on the margin of error that you
are willing to accept, not on the number of scooters in that company's fleet.
Let's say you need to examine 50 scooters to get the desired margin of error.

Suppose are going to allow 5000 scooters in your city. If you do that with two
companies, 2500 each, and you audit annually, you'll be doing each year two
audits of the facilities and employees, and checking 100 scooters (50 from
each company).

If instead you have that same 5000 scooters, but now provided by 10 companies,
you'll be doing 10 facility and employee audits, and checking 500 scooters.

So same number of scooters on the street in both cases, but about 5 times the
administrative costs to the city in the 10 company case is in the 2 company
case.

Also, if consumers need a different app for each scooter company, a smaller
number of companies will probably serve consumers better. Again, take a city
with 5000 total scooters. If those were supplied be two companies, evenly
split, then a consumer would only need two apps to have complete coverage. A
consumer with only one of the apps would still have a decent change of being
able to find a scooter in a reasonable time frame.

If that 5000 were split among 10 companies, a consumer with only one app would
only have a pool of 500 scooters available. If those ended up spread out
around the city it would be hard for a one app consumer to find a nearby
scooter. If that company concentrated in one smaller area that could solve
that problem...but then the consumer would probably end up needing the apps of
several others, too, to find scooters when they are in other parts of the
city.

There is going to be some optimum number of scooter companies for a given city
and total fleet size which balances things. Lower numbers are more convenient
and usable by consumers, and cost less to regulate and verify, but higher
numbers have more competition which might lower prices.

My guess...and it is just a guess...is that three would be about right for
most reasonably large cities.

------
sigfubar
Electric scooters are a public menace. Good riddance!

------
alexnewman
What’s the paywall strategy here

------
jshap70
off topic, but does anyone else find the name for Lime weird considering
there's already something in the tech space with the same name?

~~~
stephengillie
I keep getting Lime confused with Limeade - the latter work to increase
efficacy of corporate health plans, to make sure your employees get what
you're paying the health insurance company for.

It's like "Pandora Nexus" all over again.

------
pgnas
The mafia was taken down in Chicago because it was providing something that
was desired by the people, people who should be in control of their own lives
and will ultimately be responsible for the decisions that they make, freedom.
Unfortunately, the powers that be did not see it that way, you can argue that
Al Capone was taken down for tax evasion, I don't care, this is how he was
convicted,one has nothing to do with the other.

Al Capone was taken down because he had more power than that of the
government. These companies are being shut down because they are not willing
to pay the shakedown money by the city mafia.

We need to take this country back and until you people do not understand this,
you will remain slaves. I almost believe that this is what you want..

I do not. This is NOT what this country was built upon and changing this,
being OK with this will eventually lead to the destruction of our country,
which, before that happens, will be a civil war.

~~~
dang
If you continue to post ideological rants to HN, we are going to ban you. It's
not what this site is for, and we've asked you already.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
yumraj
I'd love to be proven wrong, only future will tell, but this seems to be yet
another fad being funded by free money from VCs. In fact the only winner in
all of this are the manufacturers who are making these scooters.

According to [https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-
scoote...](https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-scooters-
taking-over-san-francisco/) at least Bird and Spin are using Xiomi scooters.
Lime is also made overseas, read China. So, this is nothing but Silicon Valley
VC money, actually their LP's money, moving to China.

~~~
kojeovo
Very little moving to China according to that aticle

> Bird could buy a fleet of 500 scooters for $137,500, or 0.1% of its total
> funding

~~~
yumraj
According to the same article, Lime _has deployed over 35,000 bikes and
scooters across the US since last June._

They are available at $250 - $299 a piece ([https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/hot-sale-best-origina...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/hot-
sale-best-original-xiaomi-m365_60744403238.html)) Plus there is shipping,
which I don't know the cost.

So, that itself, before shipping and customs is is $8.75M - $10.465M. Not
exactly chump change.

------
pfisch
Where is the startup that creates mods for these scooters so they operate for
free?

Or the startup that opens a chop shop for disassembling all these abandoned
scooters and sells the parts?

Seriously though these scooter permits sound corrupt, or have the potential
for massive corruption.

~~~
stephengillie
I'm honestly surprised more people aren't taking the battery packs off
bicycles. I've heard there's effectively a cell phone inside (microphone,
speaker, accelerometers, GPS, cell connection, etc), and announces that it's
calling the police, when moved unexpectedly.

But cracking that case and pulling the batteries has to have some value. I'm
honestly surprised we don't hear more news about that sort of criminal
activity. Maybe if lithium were involved in the production of meth...

~~~
ebikelaw
In Oakland (where Bird and Lime dumped all their junk after SF told them off)
I have seen lots of stripped scooters. Also it’s trivial to hotwire a Bird,
and everyone in Oakland seemingly knows how to do it.

