I'm curious to see the path to profitability for Uber and Lyft's multi-modal strategies (scooters, biking). Right now it's a land grab, but I'm unconvinced the land is worth more than the purchase price. Perhaps it's valuable as part of a larger strategy but I have my doubts those bike trips are profitable on their own.
The bike stuff was basically breaking even when it was Motivate. The real tragedy here will be if Lyft bought Motivate just so they could mismanage it into non-existence.
They don’t need to make the scooters profitable — they just need to make sure that the scooters don’t displace Uber and Lyft rides. They just need to make sure the scooters are crappy, broken, and annoying to get the world to turn against scooters and stick with Uber and Lyft rides.
Given how non-motor vehicle unfriendly most roads are in the U.S., I don’t see scooters take off in most places any time soon, even if managed as well as humanly possible.