Walking 2.0: Are these companies that want to disrupt walking going too far?

Disruption, disruption, disruption. It's a word I hear quite a lot lately.

Startups like Uber, Airbnb and SpaceX are all hailed as disruptive companies and their revolutionary solutions earned them unicorn status. So it's no surprise that almost every company under the sun wants to call itself 'disruptive' nowadays. Surely, disruptive innovation is a good thing, but it is possible to take it too far?

“Okay, now give me ‘disruptive.’”

A million dollar industry

When Segway was first introduced to market the media went into frenzy and it seemed for a moment that this was going to be a revolutionary product, 'the future of personal transportation'.
So why did it fail? There were a lot of articles written about it, but to sum it up: it didn't really solve a problem.

Despite the Segway story, recently there seems to be an increasing number of startups coming up in the personal transportation space. It's not just that these kind of startups keep appearing, but they are also creating quite the hype.

The most well known one is probably Ninebot, which according to Crunchbase, it alone raised $80m from investors.

The Ninebot One, as it appears on their website

You can also watch it in action in this video from their Youtube channel.

The narrative goes like this: As urban population is growing, traditional transportation fails to cover all transportation needs. Or something like that.

Ninebot is not the only startup that wants to give urban dwellers extra mobility. Another contender in this space is RYNO as well as an exoskeleton rider created by Indian design student Bimal Rajappan.

As presented on the official website

If you take a look at their website, it's obvious what the company tries to push through as the ultimate merit of their vehicle: "The RYNO moves in the invisible lines between the roads and sidewalks, urban parks and office elevators. Hotel lobbies, outdoor malls, amusement parks. Take RYNO just about wherever you can walk."

"XOR - Exoskeleton Rider is a Personal Mobility vehicle that is the Ultimate Expression in freedom and Personal transportation."

Is there a need to revolutionize 'walking'?

The design of these futuristic-looking vehicles will definitely attract some buyers, particularly those still hopelessly waiting for a real hooverboard to come to market. But personally, I'm still not entirely sure what problem they are trying to solve. That might be because I live in Tokyo and despite the density of the population here, the public transportation is so flawless it's hard to imagine something like this could serve you better.

I just feel like, far from creating a disrupting product, these companies are trying to reinvent the bicycle or the skateboard. It's not gonna revolutionize your life but it might make grocery shopping a bit faster. Which, while interesting, I fail to see how it's become a million dollar industry.

What do you think about personal transportation/ urban mobility vehicles? Is it an industry that's going to keep expanding? Do you own a ninebot? Do you love it? Hate it? Do you find it revolutionary?
Let me know in the comments below.