FWIW, I think dockless bike/scooter share is a great idea, but having seen what a mess it has become in China, there do need to be some ground rules so that pedestrians aren’t having to step over piles of them to walk down the street.
Yeah, they’re kind of a pain to deal with them sometimes, but it turns out you can just move the bikes, and walk or ride around the piles. I have yet to see anyone get stuck in a pile. And somehow even people that don’t use the bikes seem to be able to lend some value to the idea that other people do (this was very strange to me at first, having grown up in the Bay Area).
Beijing is pretty much the perfect city for them though... completely flat and ridiculous spacious and open (except parts of the old city). I can see it being more painful in tighter cities. But they’ll figure the piles problem out; it’s already gotten better, and the net benefit has been pretty large.
Someone abandoned one on a ferry, prompting a $17,000 search: http://kuow.org/post/don-t-leave-bike-shares-ferries-coast-g...
... and piles of them are being left in people’s yards, too: http://amp.kiro7.com/www.kiro7.com/news/local/dozens-of-lime...
There is a very significant aspect of externalities happening here, in my opinion.