Bird and its fellow electric scooter providers have experienced a meteoric rise because of a simple premise: a scooter you rent spontaneously for a short period of time that you don’t have to take care of or worry about when you’re not riding it. A monthly program like this, where I’m encouraged to use it every day and liable for its well-being, injects all sorts of complications. It betrays the breezy, carefree pillar of the “micromobility” trend that is, effectively, Bird’s core business.