They went into it thinking there was a network effect. (There isn't.)
Worse for the scooter startups is that they can go far enough to cause loss, but can't go so far as to link up two essentially different geographic zones. Thus no demand side market balancing like Uber and Lyft. They're limited to small cities in the sunshine.
The people driving around and getting paid big bucks to recharge them are using...... cars.
Which is why the only play for the scooter companies is to be acquired by Uber or Lyft. Which is unfortunate because there is no original technology in these scooters. Xaiomi will sell the m365 to whoever wants to buy one. When two Chinese companies are selling the scooters, their price will halve or more, and anyone who finds himself using a scooter daily will buy one...... for $200.
I would think that Dara is on a Boeing Business Jet with Lei Jun right now toasting their exclusive deal on the next million commodity scooters at a bargain basement price.
Why can't the scooter companies design locking docks that also allow the scooters to be charged while locked in them? The locking docks is obviously already solved; modifying the scoots to lock the batteries in and charge them while locked seems pretty simple (I mean, we've had dock and charge tech for all sorts of things for many decades...).
Seems like a relatively simple problem to solve (sure, still a few months of dev time with several months of manufacturing lag, but you'll do it if it's central to your business).
The problem with docks is not technical, but that people don't want to be forced to leave them at a particular place.
Also, you would need to pay some sort of rent on those docks, connect them to electricity and all that. You could use that money instead to just buy more scooters.
I think they're imagining that there will be geographic network effects - "my city is full of CompanyX scooters, so I'll use their app". I don't know though, seems a bit dubious.
Also I seriously doubt they are anywhere near to making even a vague profit. They're charging maybe 3x as much per ride compared to bikes, but the scooters must be easily 10x more expensive and they have to pay people to charge them.
Bird's chargers are freelancers that get $5 per scooter charged. Given the price of renting them it seems like they have thin margins even before you account for the capital costs of buying and replacing the things, plus theft and destruction.
I suspect that $5 might start shrinking if they stick around. It seems just a touch generous currently. I guess it depends how many bored kids with bikes are available and willing to do the work.
one difference i've already noticed between limebike scooters and bird is in the scooters themselves.
limebike scooters' bells are on a flimsy spring so most of the time theyre broken. the bell is pretty useful for alerting walkers ahead of you of your presence without having to yell.
the bird scooters are also able to 'chirp' to help locate them - i've heard limebikes do the same but i have not been able to find that feature in their app.
overall i dont think this is an issue of a winner take all market - uber and lyft seem to live in harmony and i take whichever is cheaper. for scooters, i'd just take whichever one is closer, there is no brand loyalty or much differentiation but there's room for multiple players atm.
Uber and Lyft are different than scooter services because they leverage the network affects by the availability of drivers and wait times. Scooters could race to cover more districts and provide high availability but this can easily be commoditized. Also, cities have limits on the number of total deployed scooters within a city.
If the scooter companies can get bought by Uber or Lyft, these ride sharing services could also take on the responsibility of distributing these scooters across the city and make them highly available. That would compliment their ride sharing service tho.
