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Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

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Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#281

Post by pureagave »

duxup wrote: post #167
harmmonica wrote: post #137

As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for…

Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get seems unrelated. I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized" SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the previous day as a regular vehicle.

I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson learned.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#282

Post by crooked-v »

nixpulvis wrote: post #237
gavinray wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a human being in the car with me. It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone rude, or a distracted driver... Just let me sit in peace, alone with a robot.

Isolationism progresses.

Time for a Perry Expedition-themed dating service.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#283

Post by matthewdgreen »

habosa wrote: post #202

I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s 1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10. 2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber. 3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impat…

You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#284

Post by OkGoDoIt »

killion wrote: post #213

This looks like a clickbait study. Waymo is cheaper 100% of the time for me. The two big data points I think they purposely glossed over are: 1. Tip – Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price. 2. Car quality – Sure, a Corolla on Lyft is cheaper than Waymo. But once you select something desirable the price goes up, a lot.

I’ve never seen Waymo be cheaper than Uber/Lyft, but then again the audacity of them charging more even when they are driverless made me stop bothering to check pretty quickly.

One of the selling points of Uber over taxis has always been that you don’t have to tip. I get that some people are excessively generous but it’s absolutely not required.

If you’re the kind of person who is willing to pay more for a fancier car, good for you. I take the bus if it could just get me from point A to point B in a reasonable time, Uber is a last resort that costs 10 times as much as public transit, at least in San Francisco. It’s disgustingly, offensively expensive. And somehow Waymo charges more? Absolutely ridiculous.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#285

Post by serbuvlad »

preommr wrote: post #261
serbuvlad wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with the US tipping culture? I live in Romania and I only tip restaurants a standard of 10% (not fast food, not coffee, just restaurants). Also delivery people when they help bring heavy stuff into my appartment (theoretically they are only paid to bring it to the block entrance). Back when I used taxis we would tip those. But I have never tipped an Uber. Or a Glovo (our Door Dash) deliveryman.

Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd jobs. Grew to a point where it's disconnected from the actual value of the service, so people like waiters make way more than if it was priced according to market price, but people pay anyways because it's not about the service, but about not feeling guilty for being cheap. The ecosystem has now found a balance that hurts the consumer, which they're willing…

I guess that's why it doesn't work in Romania. Most romanians take a certain amount of healthy pride in being cheap, or rather, in being able to get more for as little money as possible.

If you buy the expensive beer you're not impressing too many people. But of course, there are 50 cheap beers, most of which suck. The pride is kmowing that one cheap beer that's as good as the expensive ones.

The fact that taxis often tried to extort tips out of you and lied to you about the price by not running their meters is what made Uber popular here -- it ended up being cheaper.

My advice: stop tipping. Just you, personally. If the average person tips 10%, and tomorrow everyone stopped tipping, prices will probably increase by ~10%.

So just personally stop tipping and enjoy the permaneny 10% discount all the other suckers are gifting you.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#286

Post by bertil »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #283
habosa wrote: post #202

I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s 1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10. 2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber. 3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impat…

You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.

Which point would you expect to deteriorate?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#287

Post by kevinventullo »

greybox wrote: post #107

This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting to have a driver in their taxi. I see th…

I’ve had multiple experiences of calling a cab company and them no-showing. You can call them back and it’s “oh yeah someone’s on their way, 15 minutes.” 40 minutes later, nothing.

With an app, you have a very clear indication of how far away your driver is, but more importantly whether they’re coming at all.

(Also with the EU specifically I very much had an issue with the language barrier in Florence).

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#288

Post by bertil »

camel_gopher wrote: post #268
habosa wrote: post #202

I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s 1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10. 2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber. 3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impat…

I’m seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a rolled up bundle of used bandages.

Were you able to flag it to Waymo?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#289

Post by harmmonica »

Animats wrote: post #186
harmmonica wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they…

There's a larger Ioniq 9. But the real future is probably a 2-seater with no steering wheel. That handles most usage.

That's really interesting because I hadn't actually thought about that in-depth before. I think Tesla's robotaxi prototype was even a 2-seater. My knee-jerk reaction to your comment was "no, 2 seater won't happen because the incremental cost of the additional seats and doors is immaterial to the overall cost of the car."

But then thinking more about it I thought of how great we (all the people who like Waymo) think it performs around bikes and pedestrians. So now I agree with you directionally but you might not be taking it far enough. Once (if?) autonomous vehicles rule the road, and they're known to be safe, the future will likely be the broad spectrum from autonomous buses (on the large side) to super-cheap, bike-like vehicles (on the small side) that cost way less than a car. For a single occupant, if you knew another vehicle wasn't going to kill you, wouldn't you take an e-bike (with a cover and basket on it?) for short trips if the fee was proportionate to the cost of the vehicle? I would. Assumes lidar shrinks I guess and that automated kickstands are a thing, but that seems tractable in the years to come.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#290

Post by dgunay »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #259
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc. I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless experience too.

It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced social interaction may be having the effect of promoting automated systems as a reaction. As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain customers while scanning the…

For me the appeal of self checkout is that everyone gets in the same line and then fans out to the next free checkout machine. I don't have to wonder if I chose wrong when I see all the other lines moving faster. Some places with human cashiers (such as Marshall's) do this, and it's great.
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