There are two reasons for ebikes. First,is if you have mobility issues. Older folks or out of shape people can use them to help them up hills and go distances. I'm totally cool with that. Are are also folks who claim they need them because they work in a 'professional' environment and 'can't arrive at work all sweaty'. I roll my eyes at them because I used to commute through Wash DC summers and was in the USAF,so I had to be in uniform and get judged on it.

The second reason is to game the system. You get a bike with a throttle and mod it,or just get a eMTB,and rip around on what is in reality an electric moped,but since it's considered to be an ebike,you don't need to worry about license/plates/insurance. What makes this really bad is the dipstick parents that give these to kids,and essentially let children run free on actual vehicles. There's a case out in CA where a lawyer couple got one of these for their child,and she was riding with her friend on the back and they ate it at speed. Kid died,the friend was hurt. But they're lawyers,so they can't do anything wrong,so they're suing the manufacturer because they didn't have enough warning labels. Srsly,how can you pass the bar and not have the INT and WIS scores not to realize you handed your child a small motorcycle?

I worked in a shop,and the bikes that come in under the de minimis rule are scary. We actually enacted a policy that if it wasn't an ebike from a major brand(Trek,Specialized,C'dale) we wouldn't touch it. Also if we didn't sell the brand,we would only touch the acoustic bits,none of the e. I think the worst thing I saw was a bike whose battery was in a nylon bag on the handlebars.

Screw vinyl and CD's,I'm still listening to mini discs.