What was your reaction last week when you found out that Bird was pulling out of the city?
Aaron Peskin: Not to sound sarcastic, but my reaction was that they came in as a classless, high-handed, bull-in-a-china-shop organization and left in the same way that they came in: Immature, incompetent and, as I said the other day, I don't think anybody had their feelings hurt when this bird flew the coop. [...]
There were no conversations with the Board of Supervisors. Bird chose to deploy thousands of scooters for hire in San Francisco in the spring of 2018 without a permit to operate, which they did because they wanted to occupy the field, and local laws be damned. And then they only communicated with the San Francisco MTA and the Board of Supervisors and the mayor through press releases, most of which, by the way, were factually inaccurate.
I've never seen a corporate actor behave in such an irresponsible, consistently irresponsible fashion.
[...] The guy who started Bird came out of a scorched-earth, Travis Kalanick school of "Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness."
Actually, don't ask for forgiveness or permission.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Love that Tim Redmond had the same reaction after The Chronicle's neo-lib apologist (one of many), Heather Knight, drowned herself in white tears over the so-called "loss".
Because you see, it's a "blight" when homeless people and their possessions are on the street, but it's "great for the city" when users of Bird/Lime/whatever leave those goddamn things all over.
Wait until you notice the blight that Ford, Toyota, GM, Subaru, etc. have brought to the streets.
> I've never seen a corporate actor behave in such an irresponsible, consistently irresponsible fashion.
Self-driving car folks: Hold my pretentiously overpriced, bland beer.
Is it really a murder when you really deserve it?
Unforgiveable that I had to read half the article to get to this pun:
Remember when Segway's were gonna change everything? I'm happy to report that walking still rules.
No no. You're supposed to spend money to hire a scooter so you can get somewhere quicker, so that you can use the free time to go to a gym and pay to do exercise.
/s
Mostly I remember when the new owner of Segway accidentally drove himself off a cliff...
I have to admit, I have a little bit of 'schadenfreude' with that incident... (Can we eat the rich yet, or do we have to wait until they stupidly off themselves first?)
Say what you will, but the Segway was a outgrowth of DEKA's effort to build a wheelchair that could raise itself up on two wheels so that the wheelchair bound user could look people in the eye when others were standing. People who have looked up at people their whole lives and who can now look people in the eye have said it is transformative.
DEKA has never found a manufacturing partner for the device, but Dean Kamen will still bring his prototype unit to FIRST Championship and ride around in it at the sponsor mixers.
So yeah, the Segway itself? Meh. The idea, and impulse behind the original intent? Noble.
And Spectacular Optical made inexpensive glasses for the Third World, before they pivoted to Videodrome. But hey, "best of intentions".
and segway played by the rules. sold their thing for a non-predatory price, didn't scatter thousands of them all over sidewalks all over america. and city governments also played fair: noting that there would be trouble with those things, making and enforcing regulations to keep sidewalks walkable. there are only two possible reasons why they did this in the case of segway and did not for bird: either travis kalanick gives vastly better blowjobs than dean kamen, or he gives vastly larger bribes.
Thank the stars. Good riddance!
I was so glad when they reduced their footprint in ATL. They were everywhere, trashed, broken, etc. Now you rarely see them.