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Cory Doctorow

One of my favorite expressions of disgust is "The only time I wouldn't piss on him is if he was on fire."

Well, the world is on fire and the only time I wouldn't piss on Uber's Jump dockless ebikes is in a pandemic, when bicycle transport has never been more essential.

1/

Uber - and other dockless transport companies like Bird - unilaterally filled our cities' streets with ewaste litter - unsafe electric vehicles that endangered their riders and pedestrians in use, and blocked sidewalks for wheelchair users the rest of the time.

These companies compounded their misdeeds by refusing to help track down customers who had hit-and-run pedestrians, even when their customers' victims were critically injured.

2/

(and, of course, Bird threatened to sue me for explaining how you could buy their abandoned vehicles from city impounds and convert them to personal vehicles)

boingboing.net/2019/01/11/flip

But you know what? There's a pandemic on. People - especially vulnerable, low-waged, "essential" workers are going to great lengths to avoid public transit. Bike riding is resurgent.

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Boing BoingBird Scooter tried to censor my Boing Boing post with a legal threat that's so stupid, it's a whole new kind of wrong | Boing BoingLast month, I published a post discussing the mountains of abandoned Bird Scooters piling up in city impound lots, and the rise of $30 Chinese conversion kits that let you buy a scooter at auction,…

What's more, after they were caught, Uber lied about it - only to have their official narrative contradicted by internal whistleblowers who confirmed to Bikeshare Museum that the bikes are being scrapped "by the containerload." And they've got pics.

twitter.com/bikesharemuseum/st

Uber has also fired the entire engineering team for Jump - a team that scratch-designed an entirely new set of internals that they alone know how to maintain and fix. Ebay is filling up with salvaged parts.

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TwitterBike Share Museum on TwitterBy Bike Share Museum

"We also can’t emphasize enough how disgusting it is for UBER to scrap 20,000 bikes in the midst of a pandemic where bicycles have literally become an object of survival.These could be transportation for the many who have been brought to financial ruin during COVID-19."

eof/