A lot to unpack there, but it does act as a reminder that most people have been highly critical of the rideshare business model, considering these jobs to be profoundly unfair an unsustainable for drivers. So it comes off as disingenuous to hear claims that we're going to lose an important working class profession. No, we're going to lose a profession that, outside of the densest cities, never made economic sense in the 21st century. It's a profession we want to see disappear. Not that it entirely matters considering that consumers are inevitably going to choose the cheaper, safer option regardless of which jobs may be at stake.
Street-side parking in downtown areas is far more wasteful than ridesharing cars.
Be careful: removing parking and making your city centre bicycle and pedestrian friendly does remove cars. But it also removes the people going into town in those cars. I'm in Christchurch (NZ) and the city centre feels car-phobic and so the city centre seems to be dying. Not sure what is cause and effect - it might have been dying first.
With all due respect, someone deterred by a parking fee is similarly deterred by spending in that neighbourhood.
It is a classic case of 'I need to eat today, so I'm taking from my future in order to do so' - this is how the poor get poorer (and the rich get richer).
Really? Next time you take an Uber, ask your driver how much they'd like it if they abruptly lost their job. Nobody is forcing people to drive Uber, unemployment is incredibly low, it's not like there aren't other opportunities. Some people actively value being able to set their own hours and not constantly have a boss breathing down their neck.
I use Waymo's all the time. There are still some quirks they need to figure out and polish the experience, but it really is happening and it appears that Uber's head is in the sands or I'm missing something here.
Also, why would Waymo, in the long term, use Uber for this?
They have the car, the driver, the app/software. They are not gonna share a big chunk of the profit with Uber in long term. The current partnership is probably just a tactical thing for both, not a strategic one.
Uber has tremendous brand recognition and marketing in ways that Google has never been good at. I don’t think it’s the most likely outcome, but I would not be shocked to see Uber take an minority ownership stake in Waymo, use it as the preferred self-driving option, and phase out human drivers in many areas over the next 10 years.
Those vehicles would then be fitted with the human interiors for the high demand periods you state.
It's not a future where Uber is a viable company though.
The interesting thing is that uber loses money on every ride. Waymo charges Uber more than Uber charges the customer.
On Uber’s side, though, this is preferable to losing the entire ride. Uber loses much more slowly by controlling the distribution and losing a few dollars per ride than by losing the entire customer base with no revenue from these customers.
I agree with your underlying premise that in the (very) long term, all taxis will be automated; I guess the gamble for investors is how long that transition takes, across the globe.
I think there's also the fact that if self-driving cars take off and price goes down, people will ultimately rely on taxis/delivery more than ever. Maybe there is a place for Uber to be the platform for that still, maybe not.
This. Uber can operate anywhere that has human drivers and cell service. Waymo needs (I think) high-precision maps that are frequently updated, and simple traffic behavior.
Traffic in Lima looks like absolute chaos to an American, with endless honking and lane markers treated as vague suggestions, but there are not constant crashes, because the (mostly professional) drivers know the local conventions and communicate with each other by horn, eye contact, hand signal, etc. Huaraz is full of blind 4-way intersections with no stop signs, so drivers honk as they get close to one, and there is a remarkable lack of fiery death.
Waymo can't work in most places until it either changes human driving, or achieves AGI. Uber works as soon as it can pay local drivers.
I'm saying a Jaguar I-Pace with lidar that knows how to follow lines and a high-res map isn't suitable for a lot of the world's roads. And how it will "scale" to what a taxi can handle right now isn't at all obvious.
Plus drivers will learn the weaknesses of self-driving cars and then abuse those weaknesses.
Taxi drivers know not to stop in certain unsafe locations - good luck for self-driving cars to learn how to read for dangerous situations because of criminals.
Respect the art form, even as it adapts to new technology.
I bet that’s a reflection of a large “anyone-but-Uber” contingent stemming from the Travis Kalanick days.
I dont know anyone using it as a verb. I hear "im calling/ordering/taking an waymo/uber/lyft/taxi" in 2025.
Even simpler: just Google "uber home" -uberhome and you'll pretty recent examples of people writing about ubering home.
If this is the case then if Waymo is consistently cheaper than Lyft, it would totally suck the air out for Lyft. Whereas, Uber would still see use despite charging a little premium, for the reason I stated in the beginning.
The last time was when I could take photos on my phone that were as good enough as lugging around a Dslr.
There have been good products and services in between don’t get me wrong. But none of them instantly blew me away like those.
The Waymo rides were near-perfect. At one point when a delivery truck was blocking 3 lanes, the vehicle assertively merged over into the free lane to get around. A couple of people on e-bikes were all over the place, but at no point did I feel that the vehicle put them in any kind of danger. Starts, stops, and turns were all smooth. End-to-end time was good, the ride itself was comfortable, and the price was reasonable.
On the other hand the Uber driver picked me up in a Tesla that had regen cranked up. They continually accelerated and decelerated the entire way to the airport, rocking the car back and forth the whole time, as if it were a nervous habit to continually press and release the accelerator or something. I felt sick by the time we got to my terminal.
For me at this point, technology like Waymo can't carpet every metropolitan area quickly enough.
One caveat: I should be able to use it (and, hence, pay for it) anonymously.
That it requires a Google account is worth taking up with the TCP. That's a tie-in sale.
I assume you mean this as a moral claim and I can agree in that case. However, it's meaningless of course and kind of infuriating in any other light, because this is the world everyone has been mindlessly begging for and there is no chance that it comes without extremely severe consequences. An automated world like this means even less power for working people than ever before, so how on Earth do you expect to realize any of these desires? Do you still think capitalists care about your privacy? Even if they did "care" it wouldn't matter because they have to compete.
Why do you think most people did in the first place? We (speaking for the majority of consumers) care more about free services than we do having our privacy protected.
The fact that there are a seemingly endless stream of cases of identity fraud and leaks of private data and we still continue to use all the services indicates that we don't value it very much.
Do I care that Google knows I went to Amazon after searching for a particular book title? Nope. Do I care that Google knows I went to the grocery store today? Still no. I would much rather get a great search engine, free maps, GPS, email, documents, storage, photo backups and more.
If I did care about the privacy of these things, I'd pay for it. Or, I'd use a dedicated account on a different service on a different device that can't be connected if I want to do something I don't want others knowing about, like buying naughty lingerie for my partner or something.
The same way this sort of thing has always been accomplished: Government regulation.
Vote, write reps, donate to the ACLU and EFF, socialize.
that is impressive to the point of giving me "living in the future" vibes
I hypothesize that at least one of these is true:
No one has exploited this yet (it only takes one incident).
It is checked, you just don't know about it. Facial ID is pretty rad now.
It isn’t. I’ve flown on someone else’s ticket and I’ve given a ticket away before.
Waymo is offering a very consistent experience, from the car that is used to the driving behavior.
Taxi services in the past, at least where I grew up, were kind of enforcing a more consistent experience by having requirements about the car and even the color.
But the driving experience was always highly variable and is getting solved by self driving cars.
With uber and Lyft you as the customer gave away some of the experience elements with the promise of cheaper and more abundant transportation.
But the experience has gone so bad, that getting into a Waymo feels so refreshing.
For many goods (short term rental spaces, rideshares), there's a finite supply of quality at a given price point.
Both AirBnb and Uber/Lyft tried to over-scale their supply, to drive revenue, and quality suffered.
Now they're fishing for the Amazon-ian point where they maximize revenue without making people so unhappy they stop using the service.
I don't have a strong opinion yet on the long-term viability of Waymo (or any other competitor) because I think we need to see two things:
* what will the cars look like in 3 years? 5?
* will autonomous tech and supporting infra (like cheap automated parking in sparse parts of cities for cars to stay when not in use) make its way into consumer products at a low enough price point, leading to heavy Waymo users turning into vehicle owners instead? This was one of the issues with the scooter/e-bike rental market.
Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway
Coverage as a passenger? For what?
It's a pretty delayed process because unless the Lyft hit a tree there's usually at least two vehicles involved in the crash and the insurance companies have to fight over fault. But they do eventually pay out.
Source: Got into an accident in a Lyft. They even paid my salary for the few days I was off work.
What is your source on TLC commercial insurance not paying out for medical expenses sustained in an accident?
And going back to Waymo, wouldn’t having one of the world’s wealthiest companies as the beneficial counterparty solve the problem you’re raising?
That's fine. Insurance is built on that model. What's the issue?
Or do you mean something else?
(If amplify means a ton of the cars crash on the same day because they share code, I doubt that being a big effect, because all the cars are in different places working on different data feeds. And even moderately high spikes would be absorbed fine.)
(If amplify means the crash rate of each car goes up when you add more cars to the fleet... why would that happen?)
No. VC.
> Just look up the lawsuits bro
Can you name one? I’ve been in a single taxi accident. Liability was never even questionably mine.
> don’t think Google or Tesla will take on that liability once we get to scale
Based on what? Centralising liability tends to facilitate its transfer.
If someone could automate wheeling the food a few dozen metres from a restaurant kitchen to a table next it would be perfect :)
gonzalohm•7mo ago
On the way back I ordered an Uber, one driver cancelled the drive, the other started driving in the other direction, possibly using multiple car sharing apps and finishing another ride.
I ended up cancelling and requesting a Waymo. It may not be perfect but at least it comes when requested
iwontberude•7mo ago
jjice•7mo ago
Just a month ago my Lyft driver said that God was telling him that the girl he was seeing was a whore because she said he should seek alcohol counseling.
Like six months ago my Uber driver (out of nowhere) said that the driver next to us on the highway (an Audi driving completely normally) must sell drugs to be able to afford a car that nice. The Audi driver was a black man.
When I'm out of town, that rate feels like it decreases though.
That all said, I'd take a Waymo in a heartbeat.
baxtr•7mo ago
On a personal level I fully understand that.
On a societal level I’d say, maybe it’s helpful not to be completely segregated from a certain social class that seems to exist in your town and to be exposed to them, albeit briefly during a cab ride.
rangestransform•7mo ago
autobodie•7mo ago
lostlogin•7mo ago
hexis•7mo ago
autobodie•7mo ago
Are you proposing any specific laws to manage antisocial behavior?
In the end, I'm certain that the better idea is to simply give people jobs.
jerlam•7mo ago
Actions like smoking/vaping, busking, drug use, littering, and peddling are usually already illegal in public transit, but widespread and difficult to enforce.
lucyjojo•7mo ago
rangestransform•7mo ago
ponector•7mo ago
BobaFloutist•7mo ago
dcrazy•7mo ago
JumpCrisscross•7mo ago
They absolutely can. Uber just prizes availability above service while Lyft perplexingly fails to differentiate itself. To the extent Waymo is cracking the market, it’s not by being an AV provider. It’s by being higher quality.
New York had Juno and then Revel that similarly targeted quality. The former was bought by Uber and ruined. The latter switched from employed drivers to a gig model.
noAnswer•7mo ago
JumpCrisscross•7mo ago
Yes. My Brown-educated perpetually suit-wearing black roommate couldn’t get a hail on 5th Avenue and the credit-card machines never worked.
dcrazy•7mo ago
Zigurd•7mo ago
Google also still has the scars from buying Motorola and acquiring a huge number of employees. They aren't going to bloat their headcount expanding Waymo.
rurp•7mo ago
hbsbsbsndk•7mo ago
ryandrake•7mo ago
ethbr1•7mo ago
pgwhalen•7mo ago
I’m sympathetic to this view but I can’t really make it a coherent theory in my head. When people talk about it on the internet it doesn’t seem to go very far beyond “something changed after Covid” and maybe “social media is to blame” but those two observations don’t make for much of a theory.
ryandrake•7mo ago
Maybe I'm longing to go back to an episode of Happy Days that never really existed, but I kind of remember a time where if you were sitting out on your porch and someone walked by and threw trash on the sidewalk in front of you, you could tell them "I saw that! How dare you throw trash down and litter in this neighborhood!" and chances are, they'd show a little remorse and maybe reverse their decision. Now, it's "Fuck off, Karen! Mind your own business! I can do what I want and you can't stop me!" And we just kind of start accepting bad behavior from strangers.
"I don't give a fuck, and you can't tell me what to do" has become this awful national motto.
morkalork•7mo ago
TylerE•7mo ago