Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
Nobody is making money in the U.S. operating bicycle so-called "ride share". Except for selling the companies to money burning operations like Uber and Lyft.
Someone, anyone, who was interested in actually making money from operations would do better selling lemonade on a street corner.
Maybe you didn't catch the deeper meaning of my sarcasm regarding buy-one-get-two-free deal on SUVs, so I will break it down for you:
You say bike/scooter sharing are not profitable enough to be interesting, but consider the opposite, i.e. overproducing (large) motor-vehicles and promoting excessive sales, which generates demand for more parking, pavement, fuel, insurance, etc. etc. You can give away liability and expense and if people fall for it, they end up with debts and liabilities that make a lot of money for businesses, but they've added to their own misery and the world's.
Now you come up with a solution, which is being able to have a bike or scooter available for short (last mile) trips, which facilitates use of more efficient transit to reduce congestion and make the world a nicer place to live and get around in; but it doesn't seem immediately as profitable as solving the last mile problem by selling everyone an SUV with no other option besides walking for miles. So here is a perfect opportunity for a cynic like you to say that this extremely convenient and efficient (not to mention environmentally friendly) form of transportation will die because investors won't be impressed enough by the earnings potential, but the question is do you really want to see it die and if not, why do you only express cynicism and negativity, and if you hope to see LCF crushed in as many ways as possible by market forces or whatever, why do you hang out in an LCF forum except to discourage people who value LCF and want to see it grow?