I don’t think the article is about bikes piling up the in the street. It’s more about oversupply and the distorted operating cost of bike sharing in China.

From a friend of mine working in this space: it’s cheaper for these companies to keep dumping new bikes onto the street rather than finding and repairing the misplaced and broken ones.

So imagine you live in a dorm with someone who never washes his mugs and leaves them everywhere because he gets free mugs from some mug oversupply place.