Lime (bikes) is a data company | Hacker News Reader

Lime (bikes) is a data company

ktoya.me

17 pointsktoyame9 comments

spoiler alert: everything is a data company unless you discover otherwise

Spending £3k on bike hire is an insane stat to me.

That would pay for a very nice e-bike or scooter to use on most of those rides.

But by using a Lime instead you don't have to worry about theft, maintenance, or storage, which could definitely be more valuable to lots of people.

To put it into perspective - the most expensive tube travel card costs ~£2800 a year. These £3k were spent over 3 years.

source: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/caps-and-travelcard-pric...

I'm aware, I have lived in London for almost a decade. But the comparison is that you could get 10-30 bikes for the same price.

That figure is cumulative over multiple years.

Go look at the price of transit in London. His per ride cost is below the cheapest transit option.

You could probably do it slightly more affordable by owning your own bike, but you have the very real risk of having it stolen, in addition to losing the convenience of being able to access a nearby bike anytime.

I've lived in London for 8 years, I am familiar with the cost. It's still insane to me. You could easily buy 10+ bikes for the price, close to 30 if you're really just looking to commute.

Yes he could buy a cheap bike, but he isn’t buying access to a single cheap bike. They are getting access to a network of 1,000s of e-bikes and scooters, placed conveniently throughout the city, maintained by professionals, charged by someone else, with 0 theft risk. You don’t have to think it’s a good deal for you, in order for it to be a good deal for them. If you want a durable, maintained, always charged e-bike, with insurance so you don’t have to worry about theft you are going to be spending a lot more than £300. I used to commute by bike, and a shitty bike makes for a shitty commute, especially in a place with weather like London.

You could save even more money by not buying a bike and just running everywhere. Do it barefoot for additional savings on shoes. Some people might call that “insane”, like you calling £1.50 for an e-bike rental “insane”

You don’t think the value is there, and that’s fine. I’m just pointing out that lots of people don’t think that amount of money for years of transit service is unreasonable let alone “insane”.

If you think of it as public transport it’s really quite cheap, I spent the same amount on tfl over ~500 days

Reply on news.ycombinator.com