Washington, DC has a similar program [1]. I believe Capital Bikeshare is also maintained by Lyft in some way. I wonder if this one is harder to abuse or if it's just that NYC has a larger pop than DC so there is a larger pool of bikes to collect?
I also feel like just one empowered customer service person with a banhammer could seriously curb the behavior in the article. The problem is that they're 'solving' the imbalances that they're creating, so its pretty detectable.