Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

>> In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless. We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area.

I'm struggling to understand what this meas. On the one hand "In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless", but, on the other hand, "Later this year, ..., we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, (...)". So "the near term" is at least next year?

Anyway it's difficult to understand exactly what is changing with this announcement. The (original) title makes it sound like everyone in Phoenix ("...the general public in Phoenix") will be able to hitch a driverless ride, but the text on the announcement makes it sound like only Waymo One members -and their relatives- will be able to do so ("Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.").

Well, I don't know who "these people" are and what exactly they thought, but I don't see why they wouldn't still be skeptical. The announcement promises that "in the near term" all Waymo's rides will be "fully driverless" but in the immediate term they are modifying their cars to go back to rides with a safety driver. So the "near term" will be fully driverless, but right now it's even less drivereless then before.

For myself, I would trust this announcement a lot more if it claimed some new technological breakthrough that enables Waymo to do now something that wasn't possible half a year, or 5 or 10 years ago (specifically, this "something" is level-3 self-driving, as poorly as this is unfortunately defined). I don't see any such claims. The announcement instead reads as so much marketing copy to me, and it is not saying anything that has any practical implications for the technological capabilities of Waymo's cars.

I think Uber and Lyft can raise their prices significantly and people will still take them, simply because the alternatives are worse.

Owning a car is worse for many situations, and so is public transportation.

If you have any friends with 16-18 year old children, ask them if they are going to buy them a car, or if they'd rather just pay for Uber/Lyft (that's an honest question, but I know what my experience is.) Ditto for people taking care of senior citizens.

There is a fundamental efficiency to rideshare. And it will continue to get better. As I said in the prior comment -- we already have self-driving cars. I push a button on my phone and somebody drives me somewhere.

For now, the self-driving tech is just a big distraction that makes things fantastically more expensive and unreliable. (This could change, but again I see that as 20-30 years in the future. I don't price it in for sure)

Also, drivers seem to love Uber and Lyft for the work flexibility, at least when I talked to many of them in 2015-2018. Those jobs were really valuable to a diverse set of people.

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I've heard the viewpoints you quoted in the media, but I don't think they are painting a balanced picture. It seems like a message that somebody wants to get out there, not a neutral viewpoint.

Of course the whole idea that Uber would reduce their costs with self-driving was also a fantasy meant to sell stock. I don't think the market ever priced that in. It's clear now that this area was a disaster, and the stock didn't crash because of that.

I think Uber/Lyft will be creating value for 10-20 years to come. People in SF seem to be bearish on them, but I think that's sort of provincial view. We might be on to the next big thing, but valuable tech is rare, and it takes years/decades for valuable technology to be adopted everywhere that it makes sense.

People are still buying iPhones for the first time, even though it was released in 2007. It's hard for me to imagine, but there must be people using Google for the first time too in 2020.

There's a good chance you will be proven wrong soon:

> Waymo plans to open the service to new customers within a few weeks. “At that point, we’ll have general access to anyone who chooses to download the app,” Krafcik said.

> The only question is whether you pay it on every ride as an up front increase or whether you pay it on the unfortunate ride as an addition.

Amortizing the cost of rare negative pricing events across all trips seems a much better model to me. I'd personally choose that option every single time.

The time-and-distance model asks me to learn average wait times, approximate route information, and consider potential worst case outcomes for both time and distance. It also requires me to police the route the cab driver is taking to ensure they aren't taking advantage of me. And I need to do all of this in every city I visit.

The upfront model asks me to be able to compare prices between different offerings (a skill I already have), and doesn't change at all between cities.