Originally Posted by
fietsbob
No chance of it spreading to small towns, not sufficiently profitable.. , so 'everywhere' is a generalization
projected from a big city dweller's perspective..
I don't see why not. When they are producing and maintaining so many share bikes and scooters, the cost per bike/scooter cannot be that high. Granted they would have to have someone in the town willing to maintain the bikes/scooters, go around picking them up in the evenings, etc. so it could turn out to not be cost-efficient in that sense, but then the question is whether they can cover the costs by upping the user fees and/or subsidizing the costs with money they're making in more populated areas. This would especially make sense if people are using their bikes/scooters to get to transit stations that serve small towns as satellites. So, for example, if someone lives in a bigger city with bike/scooter sharing and they want to take a train or bus to a small town, then it makes sense for there to be a share bike/scooter to use once they get off the bus or train, i.e. because that promotes the use of bikes/scooters in the city to go to the transit stations.
When you really break it down, what bike/scooter sharing is is using efficient mass-production to sell people multiple bikes/scooters that they can keep at various locations so they don't have to tote their own bike/scooter around with them wherever they go. It makes more sense in terms of efficiency to produce five or ten bikes and scooters per person than it does to produce a single car or truck. So what you're really doing when you participate in a bike/scooter share is to buy multiple bikes/scooters and have them available wherever you need them, which could include small towns.