I see this with e-scooters for hire, where I suspect it is entirely accidental - scooters are tall and top-heavy, and so they're easily blown over.
Essentially all of this represents abuse of the public realm. It's a form of flytipping and the hire companies are responsible for the obstructions caused by their property, it seems to me. After all it's those companies seeking to use pavements as business space. A few years ago I read reports that one London borough (Camden?) removed all the dockless hire bikes from the pavements just days after they 'appeared'. I think they removed them under flytipping laws.
In contrast, Boris bikes can't fall over because they're secured in bike docks.
Mobike in Manchester was an innovative dockless hire scheme. It was innovative for its time in that it used a smartphone app for payment and for unlocking the bike. It failed, with people stealing some of the bikes (by taking a hammer to the glorified-nurses-lock serving as immobiliser), while other bikes were thrown in the canal. The bikes in the replacement scheme are parked in bike docks.