This program is privately financed.
I doubt that bike theft is going to be a big issue with this program, either. The bikes themselves are big, heavy, ugly, pretty distinctive, and have built-in GPS trackers. Bike theft rings in NYC (and often elsewhere) are often pretty sophisticated, and in terms of risk-reward, stealing these bikes probably isn’t worth it.
If the bike theft rings don’t want them, I was thinking that the people who rent them just won’t bother to bring them back. They will end up being the equivalent of urban shopping carts.