"Those things are really fun", I said, waiting for a light to change. "Hella fun" he replied, just before he took off. The kid next to me was on a Lime scooter.

Scooters have taken over Oakland. Almost overnight, there are now hundreds of them everywhere, parked outside on the sidewalk, waiting to be unlocked with the touch of a mobile app. A quick ride will run you only a dollar or two, which starts with you unlocking it with your phone, and ends when you park it, leaving it for the next person to use. There's no rack or lock, you just leave it there for the next person to use, and get on with your day.

It got me thinking about the technologies behind all this, and how the surveillance state (something I wrote about yesterday) does have its benefits. Human rights notwithstanding, there are real benefits to the kind of tracking infrastructure China is starting to build. In my view, the four key enablers of scooter deployment are (a) better batteries, (b) ubiquitous deployment of mobile phones, (c) widespread adoption of payment cards, where most people have standing relationships with a major financial institution that "vouches" for them, and (d) GPS tracking.

The last two have major privacy issues, but the benefits of getting the balance between privacy and "surveillance" right are so big, we have to try.

I can't help but think I live in a Willy Wonka-esque fantasy land sometimes. There are electric scooters, parked outside on the street, waiting for me to use. They're always charged, in good repair, and nobody steals them.

The US is a wonderful country and it's a great time to be alive. Happy 4th.