London is 2£/day for access, rides shorter than 30 minutes are free, longer rides you pay £2 extra for every extra 30 mins. It's a great way to get around e.g. Hyde Park, or from Hyde Park via Buckingham Palace to Westminster. (Otherwise, biking in London is not very nice for non-UK tourists, mainly because of driving on the wrong side.)

Yes, it's far too expensive. You can get a rental car for $20/day. The pricing scheme mentioned in the article with $1/trip would be far more attractive, along with drop off flexibility.

On the other hand, if you use the service twice per day, for 200 work days per year, that's 400 EUR with no membership or 248 EUR with a membership (or 400£ for London).

Yes, the first ride is expensive, but that's not their target market.

It's not affordable as a weekend get-around service, or on a whim, but that's probably a less predictable and less dependable market than commuters.

>"I pay 1 EUR/30 minutes, capped at 9 EUR for a whole day."

Wow, thats comparatively a good deal. What city is this? Are the bikes advertising subsidized?