As I was coming home this morning, I noticed a nice young man unload three Bird rentable scooters in front of my building. (There are many other such brands around the U.S.)
How did the company know where and when and how many of them to leave? It is economists' favorite story. Supply chains are long and complex and in good part impersonal. They also involve entrepreneurs and managers who continuously strive to learn and update probabilities -- and adjust (trial and error) their choices accordingly. Repeated an uncountable number of times, this explains our prosperity.
Will Bird (and the others like it) survive? I have no idea. I am not an owner (by choice) and follow them with interest, occasionally cheering them on.
I have mentioned conventional, politically- rather than market-provided transit, many times. How does it survive? That has nothing to do with what consumers choose but has everything to do with what politically connected providers and their enablers choose.
In spite of our prosperity, we manage to survive in spite of all this awfulness. We generate ever larger public deficits because we can, because the world still buys and holds U.S. debt. You just have to remain the world's tallest pygmy.
ADDED
How Bird works. Many eyes on the street.
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