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So this VanMoof e-bike company is currently going bankrupt and owners have to move fast to keep access to their bicycles, which are controlled by apps that will soon no longer work.
It just leaves me wondering, Ludditely, why on Earth do people buy app-controlled bicycles? I do not understand this apparent desire to make the simple mechanical things in our lives less reliable by making them Internet dependent. My bicycle doesn't get OTA updates - it's a bicycle!
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/12/23792143/vanmoof-e-bike-payment-suspension-bankruptcy-sale
@anomalocaris I have seen rental scooters and ebikes on the street with the display panels broken and wires crossed. Apparently street people have learned how to hotwire them. Somewhere I read they also use the batteries along with a car charger to charge their mobile phones.
@mike805 That's the kind of disruptive innovation I can get behind.
I guess at the end of the day, app or no app, these bikes can be hacked pretty easily (and literally) with an angle grinder.
@anomalocaris And they will be. Has it ever been tested in court whether appropriating one of those things is even theft? They are more or less abandoned in public. I wonder if anyone has been prosecuted for that? There is plenty of valuable stuff in there.
@mike805 These bikes are sold, right? No subscription nonsense? So I guess that would just be like stealing any bicycle. Once some of them become useless, I imagine they'll get sold off cheapish to people with the tools to turn them into working bikes - though I've been reading reviews and apparently the hardware's not that great.
It remains mystifying what the advantages of these things are - in this country you can get a refurbed bike for under €100 and it'll never suffer from app bankruptcy.
@anomalocaris I'm thinking of the rent by phone scooters that litter streets and sidewalks in the USA.
@mike805 Yea, those are 100% free scooters for anyone with wirecutters and a minivan.