I don't think I have a well-informed opinion on them, but from my current understanding, they seem to be poorly deployed as it is. There's more to explore about them for me, such as whether or not we have a good understanding/ proposal of an optimal deployment, environmental impact, cost/benefit versus other methods, how much of this is a cash-grab by opportunist dickheads, is/will/can there be earnest good-faith deployment as a solution, is this just another solution looking for a problem, is this a viable stepping stone to something better, are the premises of advocation sound/valid, are there other factors that aren't obvious that merit consideration, what does current world implementation(s) look like, is it working, what does the data look like, is it good data, is it adequate data, etc,etc,ect. I'm less so trying to make the point that I don't know enough so much as making the point of what it takes to bring into consideration yet another variable in an already saturated conversation about transportation, especially considering the poor dissemination of information of what we already know/understand well.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, and I'm sure e-scooters have their place in an ideal world, but given the current social/political context, I don't think they're relevant as a public topic if the goal in mind is to improve the glaring transportation issues we have today. And I suspect that part of the point of pushing e-scooters is indeed to create another red herring in the fight against fossil fuels and car-centric everything, though I will admit that such a notion is speculative on my part since, again, I haven't done an adequate amount of looking into it to form a worthy opinion.