I don't mean that to be condescending; I really just don't get it. All of the bikeshare programs to which I've been exposed are more expensive than a bike purchase by two years of membership, and none of them (ViaCycle included) seem to mitigate the biggest issue; bike parts are theft-prone.
I use Boston's bikeshare (Hubway) all the time, even though I own one bike and could easily buy another.
Advantages:
One-way trips. Bike from one Hubway station to another, then go home on the bus or train or in your friend's car without needing to figure out what to do with your bike. I do lots of circular itineraries where I switch from bus to bike to strolling to train to bike and back to bus without ever retracing my steps.
100% secure bike parking at any Hubway-equipped destination. Because bikes stolen from Hubway stations are not my problem, they are Hubway's problem, so once I dock a bike at a station I just walk away with no worries.
(And right there we've probably got my $85/year of value. Imagine a service which provided lighted, security-monitored bike racks at forty or fifty stations around town, with insurance against theft and an iPhone app to tell me if a particular rack has space for my bike at this moment. I might well expect to pay $10 a month for that service. And Hubway provides that, plus they throw in bikes for free!)
Minor advantages include spontaneous bike trips (mitigated by my own insistence on wearing a helmet, which is annoying to carry around "just in case") and much faster arrival and departure because unlocking and locking these things is fast. I walk up and leave in thirty seconds, most of which is spent putting on the helmet, readjusting the seat height, and strapping my bag to the bike basket; arrival is faster, maybe fifteen seconds. Looking for a good locking spot, then fiddling with U-locks is not so much fun as that.
Meanwhile, sure, thieves could strip the bikes at a Hubway station. I'll bet they'd be doing it on camera the whole time, though, and Hubway stations tend to be near major intersections in populated neighborhoods. And Hubway bikes are pretty odd; I'm not sure there's a lot of easily-fenced standard parts on there.
My point is that most bikesharing programs I've seen average in the $50-$75/year range (ViaCycle included), and an entry-level (as in 'this won't win you any races, but you can ride it to the store') bike costs $100.
The space point is apt, but I can't imagine that the space constraints for your own bike (any bike rack) is more specific than a viaCycle location.
The main selling point for bikesharing programs is that they deliver some form of ease-of-mind. The core benefit is, that you don't have to spend any thoughts on these bikes, they are just there - no maintenance, no charring-around, no winter-issues (depending on your region), no theft, etc. But then again I am an avid user of one of these services and might be a bit biased.
"The core benefit is, that you don't have to spend any thoughts on these bikes, they are just there - no maintenance, no charring-around, no winter-issues"
Exactly. Commonly known as a "turnkey" experience. Something to also keep in mind when developing products or services.
I had such a service business years ago. The main thing we did was offer something and not require any thinking on the part of the customer. We limited their choices, gave them advice, and made things very easy. They liked that. They had less to think about than with our competitors. (We were able to charge more and our quality wasn't really that good.) We saved them time and the stress of making decisions.
