forget the stock market bubble,

this is China's incredible bike-share bubble.

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.

I'm your host, Chris Chappell.

The good old bicycle.

That trusty two-wheeled iron steed.

So whether you're out for some fresh air and exercise

taking your kid to school

or grabbing some fast food at “WickDonald's”,

bikes and China, like marriage,

go together like a horse and carriage.

Unfortunately, thanks to a bubble in dock-free bike-sharing,

that relationship has turned toxic.

So on today's episode of China Uncensored,

let's look at how China's bike-sharing program

has become a complete disaster.

One giant difference between China's bike-sharing

and what you're used to in the US is docking.

For bike-sharing in, say, San Francisco…

or New York—

you have to pick them up from a dock,

and return them to a dock.

And you can unlock a bike with a physical key,

or a mobile app.

The benefits are that it's easy for the city governments

to keep them tidy in designated places.

It's easy for the bike-share companies to track them,

and use vans to move bikes around to where they're needed most.

But there's a “last mile problem”.

That is, there are only so many docks,

and if there's no dock within about a mile

of where a person wants to start or end their trip,

they're simply not going to use the bike-share.

Sorry, everyone who lives in the Bronx!

But in China, cities have a cure for this last mile problem:

dockless bikes!

Thanks to GPS chips in every bike,

you can just unlock one using your mobile app.

And when you're done, leave it wherever you want!

And I mean: Wherever you want!

Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.

This is a photo of the entrance

to a park in the city of Shenzhen.

Where, as you can see, people ride shared bikes

right up to the entrance, and then just throw them

on top of the ginormous pile of other bikes

before going inside to enjoy the scenery.

China's dockless bike-sharing industry

grew like mad in recent years,

thanks to the brilliant combination of cutthroat competition

and no government regulation.

There's now about 500 or so competing dockless

bike-sharing companies in China,

each desperate to win market share

by filling cities with their bikes…

…with the idea being that if their bike is on top of the pile,

people will choose their brand over their competitors'.

With no limits to the number of companies

that could operate in a given region,

or to the number of bikes,

this led to unsightly clutter…

and crippling choice anxiety.

I think she realized she's better off

just walking that last mile.

Two of the biggest bike-sharing startups in China are Ofo

and Mobike…

Between them they've got more than 120 million registered users

and more than 13 million bikes piling up in Chinese cities.

And what made it all possible

is billions of dollars in venture capital.

Ofo, with its trademark canary yellow bikes…

…has raised at least 1.3 billion dollars in investment

across five rounds of funding.

And Mobike,

recently got 600 million in its latest funding round,

bringing its market cap to about $1 billion dollars.

And these companies with 10-figure market valuations

are locked in a cash-burning race to dominate market share

by pumping out bikes as fast as possible,

keeping the prices as low as possible,

and stacking them in the streets as high as possible.

To deal with this, some cities have starting sending

crews out to impound shared bikes.

Which make sense.

This cyclist has to ride in the street with cars,

because the bike lane has turned into a bike pile.

Here's a series of photos

from a Shanghai bicycle impound lot,

which thousands…

upon thousands

upon thousands

of bikes now call home.

Fortunately, there's still space in Shanghai

to plant huge fields of colorful flowers…

Haha, no it's more bikes.

And more bikes.

And more bikes.

And...more...bikes!

But at least there's been some pushback lately.

For example, after Shanghai realized

it had 1.5 million shared bikes—

that's one for every 16 residents—

it started to say enough is enough.

On August 18, the Shanghai Transportation Bureau

ordered bikeshare companies to stop

adding more bikes to the streets.

There's also a proposal in China to punish people

who park badly and misuse shared bikes.

And if anyone is good a monitoring and punishing its citizens,

it's the Chinese government.

According to the National Interest…

…their surveillance technology can scan

the entire population “in one second.”

I know it might feel like 1984

meets Terminator

meets Premium Rush...

but if it'll prevent people from leaving

heaps of shared bikes all over the place,

it'll be totally worth it.

Or—and I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out—

instead of punishing individual citizens,

the government could step in to design

and implement thoughtful policies to make sure

the bike-sharing companies act responsibly.

Haha, just kidding.

It's way easier to just punish people.

So what do you think about China's bike-sharing disaster?

Leave your comments below.

And now it's time when I answer a question from one of you—

my 50-Cent Army supporters who contribute

to China Uncensored on Patreon.

Primo asks,

“One thing I've been wondering is have you

ever thought of going to being more serious,

or do you think the satirical way of the show

is the way it should be?”

Good question.

So I started China Uncensored back in 2012.

Before that I was covering China

but in a straight news kind of way.

And I'm sorry to say, I found nobody really cared.

Which bothered me because I knew China is

a really important country and was having a big impact

on our lives in the United States.

This was also around the time the Communist Party

started building those artificial islands in the South China Sea

and claiming that proved it was their territory.

I found I couldn't keep a straight face saying,

“the Chinese government has started to build fake islands

and are claiming it as ancient Chinese territory.”

No, that's absolutely redonkulous.

So I created China Uncensored with the tone it has

because that's the only way I felt like I could really say

what I wanted to say about the Chinese Communist Party.

And over the years,

I've found using satire has actually helped bring

a larger audience to China news and politics.

And be honest:

If all I did was straight news reporting,

would you still be watching?

Thanks for your question, Primo.

And if you'd me to answer your question,

join up in the China Uncensored 50-army.

We have a very low mortality rate.

And for only a dollar or more per episode,

we'll give you some cool perks

and you'll have the chance to send me questions

that I could answer right here on the show.

So head over to Pateron.com/chinauncensored to learn more.

Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.

Once again, I'm Chris Chappell.

See you next time.