At the end of the last century, the tech world waited with bated breath for a revolutionary new product from entrepreneur Dean Kamen. Though cloaked in secrecy, it received great attention from tech luminaries like Steve Jobs and venture capitalist John Doerr, who said it might be bigger than the internet. That revolutionary invention turned out to be ... the Segway. The Segway HT, which stood for Human Transport, hit the market in 2001 with starting prices around $3,000. They quickly became a nuisance, taking up too much space on public sidewalks, and were soon subject to various rules and regulations. They have since been relegated to things like vacation tours and vehicles for security officers in malls and airports. But while the Segway did not take the world by storm, the concept—a compact, mobile transport vehicle that can quickly take a person a few miles—has merit. Today, this has taken the form of dockless electric scooters. I see them as being of interest to those who grew up with skateboards and are transitioning to electric versions that get them around a city faster with less physical output. Indeed, while in San Francisco recently, I saw many younger folks, some dressed in suits, zipping around on scooters from companies like Bird, Lime Bike, and Spin. I myself have been tempted to rent one, but at my age, I am probably not their target customer. Electric scooters have caught the attention of Uber and Lyft, which are now vying for five permits the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is scheduled to hand out later this month. One of the issues the SFMTA is looking at is sidewalk clutter. These companies' business models allow people to ditch scooters on the street when they're done; there are no docks as you might find with bike rentals. "As part of their permit application, companies must demonstrate how they will minimize their impact on San Francisco's sidewalks, while maximizing their transparency to the public," the SFMTA says. Ben Thompson argued in his Stratechery newsletter recently that scooters are "one of the purest manifestations of...Everything as a Service." "The enabling factor for both Uber and Airbnb applying a services business model to physical goods is your smartphone and the internet: it enables distribution and transactions costs to be zero, making it infinitely more convenient to simply rent the physical goods you need instead of acquiring them outright," he writes. Thompson's perspective is important in that it places scooters in the proper context of the gig economy and how it could impact mobile transportation for short distances in very meaningful ways. The more I look at the role scooters could play, especially in large cities where parking is sparse and using a taxi or Uber or Lyft to go short distances does not make sense, the more I see Dean Kamen's Segway vision being played out. Kamen may not reap the big rewards from that original vision, but he still had a hand in delivering on it. For further reading on this subject, check out this New York Times piece from Kevin Roose, who went from critic to fan after using scooters for a week. TechCrunch also covered the regulatory issues and how some cities may deal with the challenge of accommodating scooter services.
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At the end of the last century, the tech world waited with bated breath for a revolutionary new product from entrepreneur Dean Kamen. Though cloaked in secrecy, it received great attention from tech luminaries like Steve Jobs and venture capitalist John Doerr, who said it might be bigger than the internet. That revolutionary invention turned out to be ... the Segway. The Segway HT, which stood for Human Transport, hit the market in 2001 with starting prices around $3,000. They quickly became a nuisance, taking up too much space on public sidewalks, and were soon subject to various rules and regulations. They have since been relegated to things like vacation tours and vehicles for security officers in malls and airports. But while the Segway did not take the world by storm, the concept—a compact, mobile transport vehicle that can quickly take a person a few miles—has merit. Today, this has taken the form of dockless electric scooters. I see them as being of interest to those who grew up with skateboards and are transitioning to electric versions that get them around a city faster with less physical output. Indeed, while in San Francisco recently, I saw many younger folks, some dressed in suits, zipping around on scooters from companies like Bird, Lime Bike, and Spin. I myself have been tempted to rent one, but at my age, I am probably not their target customer. Electric scooters have caught the attention of Uber and Lyft, which are now vying for five permits the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is scheduled to hand out later this month. One of the issues the SFMTA is looking at is sidewalk clutter. These companies' business models allow people to ditch scooters on the street when they're done; there are no docks as you might find with bike rentals. "As part of their permit application, companies must demonstrate how they will minimize their impact on San Francisco's sidewalks, while maximizing their transparency to the public," the SFMTA says. Ben Thompson argued in his Stratechery newsletter recently that scooters are "one of the purest manifestations of...Everything as a Service." "The enabling factor for both Uber and Airbnb applying a services business model to physical goods is your smartphone and the internet: it enables distribution and transactions costs to be zero, making it infinitely more convenient to simply rent the physical goods you need instead of acquiring them outright," he writes. Thompson's perspective is important in that it places scooters in the proper context of the gig economy and how it could impact mobile transportation for short distances in very meaningful ways. The more I look at the role scooters could play, especially in large cities where parking is sparse and using a taxi or Uber or Lyft to go short distances does not make sense, the more I see Dean Kamen's Segway vision being played out. Kamen may not reap the big rewards from that original vision, but he still had a hand in delivering on it. For further reading on this subject, check out this New York Times piece from Kevin Roose, who went from critic to fan after using scooters for a week. TechCrunch also covered the regulatory issues and how some cities may deal with the challenge of accommodating scooter services.