tandempower

I just read a headline that escooters are consider mopeds by NC law. That leads me to wonder why there has been car-sharing, bike sharing, and scooter sharing, but as of yet no moped/motor-scooter sharing. If you could rent a moped by the hour without having to return it to where you got it, would you be more or less apt to use them in comparison with other types of dockless share vehicles?

badger1

Where is this "sharing" occuring? I have not heard of any car-share (unless you mean voluntary car-pooling, arranged between individual car owners?), and I certainly haven't heard of any bike-share or scooter-share schemes or systems.

I have heard, of course, of paid systems like Uber and Lyft for cars (aka underinsured, unlicensed and unsanctioned/largely unregulated taxis), and I have heard of pay-for-use bicycles and scooters -- the latter the current fad littering the streets of quite a few major cities -- but no "sharing" that I'm aware of.

jon c. 

The "sharing" euphemism seems little more than a marketing tool.

Regarding public acceptance of various vehicles, convenience and perceived safety will always be the main concerns. A moped wouldn't be much different from an e-bike in that regard. Scooters would be another matter. They seem inherently less safe to me.

prathmann

Example of car sharing:
https://www.zipcar.com/
Example of bike-share:
https://www.citibikenyc.com/ happens to be NYC, but similar systems in many cities worldwide
Example of scooter-share:
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus...-columbus.html

jon c. 

The point is these businesses aren't sharing anything. They're companies that rent vehicles for short term use. Renting a car from zipcar isn't really any different than renting from Avis. Except from what I've seen it tends to be bit pricier for anything but very short trips.

I don't really understand the point behind the marketing, but I'd think the idea is to make these corporations seem less corporate. It sounds more friendly.

badger1

No, none of these examples has anything whatsoever to do with "sharing". There is no share there.

These are all corporate entities, which purchase vehicles/conveyances of various types, and then rent them, for fee and (presumably) profit, to individual consumers.

Ownership of said vehicles/conveyances resides in the corporate entity. Users of these devices are not "sharing" them with each other, nor are the corporate owners "sharing" them with users.

Let's construct a hypothetical model of a "share" system. Let's suppose that 10 families get together, pool their resources, and purchase two cars, two bikes, and two scooters. The six devices are owned, jointly/collectively, by the 10 families, who have agreed on a schedule of usage for each device for each family, daily/weekly/monthly whatever. The expenses of maintenance, repair, and so on they have agreed will be borne jointly/collectively by the 10 families. That would be a car/bike/scooter share system.

The speculative, corporate ventures you link have no relationship to 'sharing'. As @Jon C points out, the use of the term "share" by such ventures is pure, unadulterated marketing b.s.

tandempower

It just means that there is a fleet of vehicles and you can grab one when you need one. They are priced per use and per minute, but I'm sure they could sell unlimited usage plans. In a sense, you could also call cell-phone companies "antenna shares" or "bandwidth shares," because you don't have to buy one frequency for your phone, i.e. you can share it with others so the same limited bandwidth can be used by more people.

Rollfast

I've still got six bikes though.