The scooters solve no problems bicycles already do not, not exactly even portability yet.
They create problems of litter on sidewalks, trash generation due to damage (where rental bikes are typically fixable if damaged) and issues of safety as they're much less visible and people tend to not use the bell...
It's funny, Handicap parking spots are sacred. What kind of a deplorable, revolting human being would ever park in a handicap spot if they weren't handicapped? Pictures and videos of horrible, wretched human beings parked in handicapped spots are posted online so they can be called out and shamed.
Yet there are so many disabled people who cannot work a regular job and/or cannot qualify for a licence. Everything about cars makes their lives more difficult. Often they just stay at home, because getting anywhere is such a costly and/or harrowing chore. Handicap spots are just more parking lot they have to cross to get where they're trying to go.
So what was the point of bringing it up then?
> The scooters solve no problems bicycles already do not
Sure they do. Part of the issue with bikes is a chicken and egg problem where politicians are hesitant to invest money into bike infra, because not enough people ride. And many people don't ride because of bad bike infra.
Many, perhaps most of the people riding escooters don't ride their own bike around, or wouldn't ride a rentable ebike, for whatever reason. That's why the scooters got uptake much more rapidly than rentable ebikes.
So once you have more people on modes that fit bike infrastructure, because of, say, the ease of use and accessibility of electric scooters, it becomes easier to fight for that bike infrastructure.