Bird sold me on the vision of micro-mobility. I was genuinely excited at first—thought it could really work. Scooters make perfect sense for cities: they're efficient, they reduce car trips, they solve last-mile problems. Then over the next year I saw their scooters trashed in lakes, vandalized all over, and ran into multiple that just didn't work. That's when I knew Bird's execution wasn't gonna make it. At least not in Oakland and San Francisco.

From Investors Business Daily, Bird's still struggling despite the early promise. Vandalism and broken scooters have been a constant problem, especially in cities like Oakland and SF. Financially, they posted losses in the December quarter and full year, though not as bad as Wall Street expected. Sales grew compared to previous years, but the company's still fighting uphill against operational and financial problems.

Here's the problem Bird never solved: unit economics. Scooters cost $400-500 each, last 2-4 months before vandalism or wear kills them, and generate maybe $5-8 per day in revenue. That math doesn't work. You need durable hardware, better city partnerships for designated parking, and enforcement against vandalism. Bird tried to scale before proving the fundamentals.

The vision is still right—micromobility is key to urban transportation efficiency. But execution matters. DoorDash's Dot robot and Serve Robotics are showing how to do this right: purpose-built hardware, controlled deployments, partnership with established platforms. Bird went for blitzscaling without proving sustainability.

Micromobility will work—but it requires solving durability, vandalism, and unit economics first. Bird proved the demand exists. Someone else will figure out how to make the business model work.