[alsothrownaway]

> Company litters thousands of billboards all over streets and sidewalks, creating city-wide eyesore / road hazard

> Citizens remove hazard from streets, profiting at company's expense

Isn't this the definition of poetic justice?

[lazerwalker]

Only if you only view the scooters as a "hazard" and an "eyesore". An alternate interpretation (even if you're rightfully skeptical of for-profit venture-funded startups like these) is that the scooters are a fairly sustainable and scalable form of individual transit compared to cars, and a world where scooters (or similar devices) fulfill a useful last-mile role in public transit is one that's beneficial for society and civic infrastructure.

[CaptainZapp]

is that the scooters are a fairly sustainable and scalable form of individual transit compared to cars, and a world where scooters (or similar devices) fulfill a useful last-mile role

This argument only holds water if public transportation sucks in a city. If you can get to wherever you want to go within a 200 metre radius of a city by public transport (which is the case in a lot of European cities to begin with) then this argument does not make any sense.

fulfill a useful last-mile role in public transit is one that's beneficial for society and civic infrastructure.

That's at least debatable. If it's really part of public transport infrastructure then this should be coordinated with the cities. But the mindset seems more a : "We shit 500 of those things throughout a relatively small city and disrupt the holly bejeezus out of this town". As long as this attitude prevails I neither see this as a valid argument.

[amyjess]

> a useful last-mile role in public transit is one that's beneficial for society and civic infrastructure

You could also call it "a last-mile role in public transit that's completely inaccessible to the disabled".

Hell, my disability is relatively minor—I have developmental dyspraxia (a.k.a. developmental coordination disorder)—and I attempted to ride one of these scooters once, and I was so completely out-of-control riding it that I had to stop after a block, drag it back onto the sidewalk, and tuck it in a corner so nobody trips over it. It took me several minutes to stop shaking.

And they can also cause externalities for people with other disabilities. For example, people throwing them down on the sidewalks can create tripping hazards for the blind (though from what I've seen, this was a much bigger problem with the bikes that predated the scooters than the scooters themselves).

[gtirloni]

I understand these are faceless corporations but, if you're a concerned citizen and want to make a statement through civil disobedience, why not disable the scooters and leave a note? Why profit?

I can't see this as poetic justice. Two wrongs don't make a right, as the saying goes.

[gtirloni]

For the downvotters, I'm not advocating you do any of that. I was writing from the point of view of someone who thinks what's being done is right (people screwing a company that is, in their views, harming their city) and how ripping it off by hiding the scooters and profiting from the charges is kind of messed up.