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These scooters are around $400, unless you're using them for a commute its quite a few rides to recoup the purchase cost. Then there's the ability to ride it one way and just leave it without worrying about having it stolen or damaged and losing your $400 investment.

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It's at most 6 months payback for the average commute at current prices.* And that's for a $400 scooter. Think Xiaomi can't get these things into U.S. ports for $300? Think again.

Scooter share economics don't work. And now that cities are placing caps on vendors and scooter quantity, prices are going up. Which means payback period to owning the scooter goes down. This is a vale of tears.

* What is the average payback period for purchasing a car (μ(p) = $30,000) versus taking the train? Much longer!

Payback period is kind of a nebulous concept because you can't easily assign a cost to the trips forgone because they aren't worth taking when you're at the mercy of some 3rd party's pricing and/or schedule. The personal freedom you get from having a scooter and/or a car is hard to overstate.

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