Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

i just finished super pumped, the uber book. it's a solidly executed "and then what happened was. and then what happened was." business book. it's not as wild a story as bad blood, but somehow more appalling for being more archetypical of SV. and while i remembered all the stories (apart from a couple of things from new reporting it's not new news), i somehow hadn't realized that 90% of it happened in the space of about 2 months in early 2017.

V cool -- my girlfriend's got a copy and she's looking forward to it.

A fun discovery about the lil' workspaces I've been using

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/wework-phone-booths-to-be-removed-due-to-formaldehyde

this is going to rule

hi im really excited for this@briankoppelman and @DavidLevien are singular talents and i can’t believe i get to work with them and @Showtime to make SUPER PUMPED a show! pic.twitter.com/I9sjaBWnBK

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) October 16, 2019

things are gonna get interesting!

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/California-s-AB5-will-kill-the-gig-economy-14536962.php

I stopped at "whereas Prop 13 is a force for good..."

hahah -- yeah. But AB5 in general ...

Today in business models:

"Some prospective investors who met with Lime recently concluded that the current lifespan and costs such as charging and repair mean that the company loses almost all the money it sinks into purchasing each scooter." https://t.co/hyGk5HA9HK

— Eliot Brown (@eliotwb) October 21, 2019

cool

So we've basically fucked up every bicycle lane in the country so that a few liars can get rich off free credit. Cool cool.

lol no our bicycle lanes are fine it's our sidewalks that are fucked

I enjoy taking these scooters in cities with bike lanes and I think they do a good job filling a void for short distance trips. I hope one of the companies develops a sustainable business model.

What's wrong with rental bicycles?

You can’t turn them into litter whenever you’re done

the electric scooters aren't currently legal on paths* or on the roads here in the uk, so we don't get to hire them, only bikes. people do still sell them and use them - there's one parked by the photocopier - but they can be confiscated if you're caught.

(tries to avoid the word 'pavement' because, like 'pants', you've chosen to use the word for something slighty different)

I not only see these scooters now clogging bike lanes -- which are in short supply as it is -- in Cleveland, I saw a person the other day riding one ****on the freeway shoulder****.

What's really cool is when they block ramps and other means of accessibility

hi, iatee!

Hey Americans outside New York City! If you think scooters are bad for other road and sidewalk users, especially children, old people and people with disabilities, wait until you hear about cars!!!

They’re unbelievably dangerous and they literally destroy the fabric of cities, isolating all of us from each other socially and politically (especially people who can’t drive), and destroying the planet.

(Which, back on topic for this thread, is not to to say selling a dollar for fifty cents like these companies are doing is a good idea)

it's somewhat rare that cars drive on sidewalks.

Cars are the reasons streets and sidewalks are designed the way they are.

And it’s not that rare!

i said somewhat rare.

lol as a longtime cyclist and cycling advocate you are hardly going to see me defending car-based infrastructure

yeah, I thought most of ilx was anti-car? They have those scooters in chile. People leave that shit everywhere.

Cars aren't really my problem, it's been a while since anyone scrapped a biking lane to make way for cars in Copenhagen. Biking infrastructure was getting better and better. But then these fucking scooters showed up.

E-scooters have taken over Hoboken. Unlike bikes however they’re not allowed on sidewalks and people generally obey that rule. I don’t mind them but Hoboken is probably the ideal place for something like that. I also saw a lot of them when I was in Mexico City this spring though apparently they’re operating in a legal grey area there.

In Queens last year I used to see a family of 4 taking two kids on two scooters on the sidewalk to school. It was kind of annoying but cute.

I guess my point is that most places (with a couple of exceptions where pedestrians are the majority) in the US would be enormously improved by scooter use. There are some social conventions to work out and they need curbside parking (currently given to cars). And the rental companies oy vey.

But it would be an improvement! And there’s cars! So the anti scooter stuff preposterous to me that I feel like it must actually be some anti gentrification anti tech bro stuff. Which, fair. But come on! Cars!

What problems have the scooters caused in Denmark Fred? (Srs question)

I mean, all these 'in theory' good advances for society are all being executed without a care to responsible implementation.

They are taking space from bikes, not cars. Plus people leave them everywhere. I don't get why not just support bikes?

I can imagine that due to various disabilities there are people who can operate scooters, but not bikes. (Arthritis, injuries, etc.)

caek, you're not wrong given certain assumptions, but given infrastructure as it exists now and given how many cyclists are killed and injured by motorists every year (without punishment), I can see things going very badly with a large expansion in scooter use unless car traffic is curbed significantly.

the scooter users here are required to use the street not the sidewalk, but hardly anyone complies, partly because when they get in the street (and don't bother looking for quieter side streets like the less confident bikers often do) they're surprised and scared at how dangerous it is (exacerbated by their freewheeling unprotected style), and because as non-bikers they think it's perfectly fine to scoot on the sidewalk. there aren't going to be car-on-scooter fatalities, there are going to be scooter-on-pedestrian injuries.

It's the whole "let's be legends" mentality. All of these tech-bro companies expanded too fast, disregarded communities, moneypitted funds or didn't even care about a baseline of ethics or user protections. They probably thought someone else would figure it out after they got their payday for their genius.

well they were right

Most vc money goes to white men and their vision. Applaud that hard work.

Nobody is going to figure it out, it's going to go away after it has harmed an enormous amount of people.

that's called figuring it out. meanwhile you have deposited yr check and moved on to as yet undisrupted pastures

for about an hour I seriously considered a side hustle in being a scooter bounty hunter ...

One drawback of the scooter craze is that someone in our building has decided to set up a charging station in our hallway. I guess they make a commission for each scooter they charge?

They do, there's an entire economy based around it.

I wonder if being able to just step off a scooter might make them safer.

I don't think the backlash is against scooters per se, but the fact the vast majority of them in many areas are the rental ones that don't have a dedicated dock and and just left wherever

I was reading about some scooter group in the NYC area that organizes mass rides similar to the bike city rides and it seemed like a pretty cool enthusiast community

I could definitely see the lack of dedicated parking for scooters being a dealbreaker somewhere like Manhattan where sidewalks are already extremely congested.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/

fwiw i think it's possible to separate the tech bro startup stuff (that belongs on this thread) from the "how do we plan to make US cities not be such unbelievably unpleasant places to move around (even in a car!)" stuff. i feel like many of you are struggling to do that.

whether they are good for a city is very city dependent. in general, the more pedestrians, the more problems they can cause (this goes for cars and bikes, too!). but almost nowhere in the US reaches the level where this is true. it's mind-boggling how few people are on the sidewalk in the "downtown core" for most US cities. the reason for this is cars! so, to the extent scooter use reduces car use, they are good!

I don't have a problem with the scooters ... in my neighborhood the users tend to be techbros, but in many other parts of my city, it's black kids and teens riding them, and it's kinda cute when they crew up and ride through the more gentrified parts of town.

I believe we have a dormant city transportation/urbanization thread that iatee made a lot of good points on

this is the SV thread, and scooter rentals without real storage space is an issue that I feel is distinct but also entwined with the lackadaisical ditching of this e-waste on our sidewalks

yeah i was carping about the vc economy generally and have no data on scooters, tho i do think i saw a rack of them the other day on banyan drive (where the hotels are), which i guess is preferable from everyone's perspective to making all the tourists rent cars if they want to do anything on their vacation besides go to "shooter's"

(they should have to scoot across the pacific first tho)

this is the SV thread, and scooter rentals without real storage space is an issue that I feel is distinct but also entwined with the lackadaisical ditching of this e-waste on our sidewalks

fair. the regulation of tech is obviously where this (in hindsight pretty blithe!) comment breaks down:

fwiw i think it's possible to separate the tech bro startup stuff (that belongs on this thread) from the "how do we plan to make US cities not be such unbelievably unpleasant places to move around (even in a car!)" stuff. i feel like many of you are struggling to do that.

i literally just read super pumped. it's absurd that i could write that.

(everyone read super pumped btw)

(and where is the transit/urban thread?