It's not a good trade, there shouldn't be a monopoly on public ads, local businesses should be able to reach consumers without having to go through a monopolist that captures all of the value.
Everything is a choice, we don't HAVE to accept these shitty ads everywhere.
Yes, it's a trade off. I wish my city had free bike share.
It does exist, but then the cost of the bike sharing would have be borne by
a) users of the bike system - this would impact ridership and equity of access. b) local govt - budget would have to come from somewhere.
considering b) would likely mean that the project wouldn't get past planning, really a) is the only alternative.
Everything is a tradeoff.
From my perspective, I'll take shitty ads if the money earned from those ads is spent on significant quality of life improvements. Same reason I support legalization and taxation of gambling, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc where the revenues pay for schools, social services, etc.
> money is fungible
What?
Money being fungible means that one dollar is as good as another. It all goes in a big pile for the budget. In other words, you don't have to match up your revenue sources with your costs (like bikes with advertising), though this is frequently used for the purpose of trying to justify one thing or another.
We want to live in nice towns not in cyberpunk hellscapes where we can't even cross a street without being violently bombarded with advertising. A business should be able to put up a sign on its own building and that's about it.
Also with monopolist it is really easy to keep some standards, quality of the ads.
[Edit to reply to okr, because I'm rate-limited:
Well, then, make the users of the bikes pay the full cost of the bike service.
As it is, you're pushing ads in everyone's face, whether or not they use the bike. Also no thanks.]
Consumer sentiment will be shaped by media other than advertising. You watching Instagram of people drinking alcohol and (seemingly) having fun will make you want to drink alcohol.
Ads for a particular type of alcohol will only steer your selection of product, but do not induce a desire to get it.
This seems very implausible. People's largest expenses are things like housing, healthcare, childcare, and groceries, which are mostly not driven by advertising.
My big city in Poland tried several times to get public-private bike sharing. It ended the same: company ceases operation after few years and take all bikes from the streets. People get nothing while millions already spent.
The brouhaha over the pregnant nurse “stealing” a youth’s Citi bike was only possible due to the habit of under-18 users camping on bikes to continue riding them for free when their timer expired.
Is this an argument for public-private deals?
Great, so long as motorists pay the full cost of the roads.
As road wear and tear is proportional to the third or fourth power of axle weight.