They've been working on those things in Tallinn for years, and I've only ever seen them operate in a very limited area, and even then it's not unusual to see them seemingly stuck at the nearby rail crossing. Meanwhile a human on a Bolt scooter ate their and their investor's lunch IMO.
They do look cute, I remember being completely taken-aback the first time I saw one in the wild - I had to resist the temptation to stand in front of it, to see what would happen.
Though I did wonder how they'll cope in winter-weather. I can't imagine they'd do so well on snow/ice.
But there are plenty of places that don't have much snow and ice where they should be perfectly practical. Ice shouldn't be a problem, they could swap to studded tyres in the winter just like we do for cars here in Norway. Snow would be a much bigger problem though I agree!
I'd encourage you to stand in front of it. Commercializing public walkways like this is fine, I guess, but as a human walking around for non-commercial reasons, I feel like you have the right to do whatever you want (within reason) that doesn't impact other humans.
