There's another bike company here in (SE)Asia, OBike. They're pretty big, and aggressively fundraising. I told my wife, "I can understand that people want to Uber-ify everything, but this is very different than Uber concept, so I think it won't work in the long term."
The main difference is.. who's looking after the vehicle.
With Uber, the vehicle is typically owned by the driver, so the driver has interest in making sure the customers (riders) don't vandalize it. Not only that, it's in the driver's best interest to keep the vehicle maintained.
With these bike sharing companies, nobody except the company owns the bike. And since nobody is watching over the customers, they don't feel the need to behave.
You can say, "Just force them to put deposit, and if the bike is damaged, deduct their deposit." Well, how do you know if the bike is damaged by them, and not random bypassers?
The main difference is.. who's looking after the vehicle.
With Uber, the vehicle is typically owned by the driver, so the driver has interest in making sure the customers (riders) don't vandalize it. Not only that, it's in the driver's best interest to keep the vehicle maintained.
With these bike sharing companies, nobody except the company owns the bike. And since nobody is watching over the customers, they don't feel the need to behave.
You can say, "Just force them to put deposit, and if the bike is damaged, deduct their deposit." Well, how do you know if the bike is damaged by them, and not random bypassers?