Free steel

rcjordan · August 02, 2018, 03:34:34 PM

Police looking for 241 bikes missing from sharing program

http://www.hastingstribune.com/police-looking-for-bikes-missing-from-sharing-program/article_4e1629b3-7637-589b-97df-88be430a07c5.html

DrCool · August 03, 2018, 05:12:20 PM

About 15 years or so ago Spokane bought about 150 bikes for people to use to get around downtown. Within about a week most of them ended up in the river. I haven't heard of a free bike system that didn't end similarly.

ergophobe · August 03, 2018, 05:20:06 PM

I was just in Grand Rapids and they have a cool bike system. The bikes all have locks that are keyed to an app. To open a lock, they need your credit card. It's a dollar a ride (50 cents for students) and $14/week if you want to keep the bike overnight.

I think "free" is usually a bad idea for most things. There are exceptions obviously (Linux, Wordpress, etc; Seth Godin's first book, etc).

If you give away a really good book, everyone will take it and nobody will read it. If you charge $4.95 or $9.95, a lot fewer people will take it, but they will feel some engagement and actually read it.

Not that I've fully tested this, but I do have a book that I have made freely available for 20 years and as recently as a month ago I had three people ask me to "publish" it to make it "available" - until it costs money, it just isn't real to them.

rcjordan · August 03, 2018, 05:24:04 PM

Tariffs have probably raised the price of scrap mental high enough to make these bikes attractive to the scrappers. About a week ago, I saw a headline that some city had finally busted a ring stealing storm drain grates.

rcjordan · August 03, 2018, 05:28:15 PM

<added>

>Spokane river

Saw this a few days ago.

Good Job, Portland: Only One E-Scooter Has Been Thrown in the Willamette River So Far"

http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/08/01/good-job-portland-only-one-e-scooter-has-been-thrown-in-the-willamette-river-so-far/

ukgimp · August 08, 2018, 05:34:51 PM

Manchester

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/16/manchesters-bike-share-scheme-isnt-working-because-people-dont-know-how-to-share

They just used to get robbed.

I read one was tracked down via GPS, upon asking for it back he got told to fuck right off haha

rcjordan · August 11, 2018, 06:51:35 PM

Electric scooters face backlash from cities across the US after mayhem on the streets

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/11/electric-scooters-face-backlash-cities-across-us-mayhem-streets/

ergophobe · August 12, 2018, 04:32:41 PM

And... I just got an email from the company in Grand Rapids that was behind the bike share. They are abandoning the GR pilot program to focus on electric scooters and other markets.

DrCool · August 13, 2018, 08:23:12 PM

Southern Californians are tossing electric scooters into ocean, burning them

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/08/13/southern-californians-are-tossing-electric-scooters-into-ocean-burning-them-report.html

rcjordan · October 03, 2019, 04:55:40 PM

Fishermen pull 11,000 pounds of metal from Spokane River

https://theweek.com/speedreads/869402/fishermen-pull-11000-pounds-metal-from-spokane-river

DrCool · October 03, 2019, 10:03:41 PM

>>Fishermen pull 11,000 pounds of metal from Spokane River

When I used to go snorkling in the river I would see all kinds of hunks of metal, even a couple old guns.

IIRC that guy they were interviewing used to be a meth addict and once he got clean magnet fishing was what kept him from going back. Pretty cool story overall.