In my city (Milan, Italy) bike-sharing is an extremely common solution.
I feel like the business model is the main problem. Low margins high-costs (you frequently need to replace thousands of bikes) and basically no moat.
Every few years a new startup can enter the marketing with a better bike. The incumbents have to improve their or risk losing the entire market in a matter of weeks.
>Low margins high-costs (you frequently need to replace thousands of bikes) and basically no moat.
the story of the sharing economy right there. I seriously don't know how bike / taxi / scooter rental companies have become a favourite of tech investors. It seems like some Robin Hood scheme to distribute money from investors to customers
It's genuinely less hassle. Where do I park my bike? How do I prevent it from being stolen? It got a flat tire, what do I do? These seem like simple questions but bike sharing provides such a simple solution to them, plus more: you caught a ride to the park but don't want to pay for a taxi back? Missed the bus? Need to get to a meeting a few blocks away but don't want to arrive sweaty from a run? The answer is there's a share bike already within sight of you that you can rent for (literally) pennies in seconds.
(They're also pretty heavy for anything but short distances and not always in great condition. And at least in Berlin where I lived you can get your own bike for $50 or so, which I had. But I still like the idea.)
For example, why wouldn't someone just buy a bike?
If you buy a bike you lose some flexibility. With bike sharing I can take the bus to work, take a bike to my meeting and then decide whether to take the bus or bike home depending on the weather and my plans. I can also do things like take the bus into town and then take the bike from the bus stop to the place I'm going, or bike into town and take the bus home with all my shopping.
I live in a crowded European capital city (Bucharest) and one of the big reasons for me not buying a bike is that I don't have enough available place. I personally live in an one-bedroom apartment (before that I used to live in a studio) and yes, I could probably fit a bike somewhere around the place but that would be pretty inconvenient. I also live on the 8th floor and a regular bike doesn't fit in my building's elevator, so that would mean me having to carry it 8 floors up and down each time I wanted to ride it.
My gf does have a bicycle but for the reasons I mentioned above she decided to keep it at her office, which is at walking distance from where we currently live (about 10-15 minutes).
Seems like a subscription to their BikeMi system costs 36€/year for unlimited free rides (up to 30mins/ride), so quite cost competitive with bike ownership. This is becoming common in main European cities (I know of Brussels, Paris and Lisbon).
I feel like the business model is the main problem. Low margins high-costs (you frequently need to replace thousands of bikes) and basically no moat.
Every few years a new startup can enter the marketing with a better bike. The incumbents have to improve their or risk losing the entire market in a matter of weeks.