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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

#31

Post by Jelthi »

I pay more:

- To support cool technology

- To ride in a high end car of known quality

- To listen to my music and at any volume

- To not feel weird about the little things like talking or rolling down my windows or setting an AC Temperature

- To know exactly when and where my driver will pick me up down to the exact curb.

- To not have to make small talk with a person. Even when requesting quiet preferred you’ll get an uber driver who wants to share their life story or trauma dump on you.

- To not die. I’ve been in some terrifying Ubers with either bad drivers or just exhausted ones.

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

#32

Post by cosmic_cheese »

A robot isn’t going to decide it doesn’t want to take my ride after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I’ll get tired of waiting and cancel. I haven’t needed Uber/Lyft on a regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a frequently recurring problem.

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

#34

Post by agumonkey »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4
baxtr wrote: post #2

Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this. Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe being alone in the car makes a better ride?

I pay a premium for Waymos. No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.

What about driving safety ?

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

#35

Post by floren »

pkrecker wrote: post #6

I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience: * Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often. * I can control the music and volume with my phone. * I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work. But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either drivi…

I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.

And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were just smoking weed/cigs in the car.

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

#36

Post by Pwntastic »

toast0 wrote: post #28
Pingk wrote: post #8

The article doesn't mention if tips are included in their calculation (I suspect not). Are Uber/Lyft still cheaper after a 10-15% tip?

Assuming the rides are comparable, the article has a table which includes price/km (weird) of Lyft: $7.99, Uber: $8.36, and Waymo: $11.22. On that data, Waymo is roughly 40% higher, so way more than just a tip.

in my limited experience, you're not usually tipping a percent but a flat dollar amount of like $2-5 per ride, so $3 on an $8 ride basically removes the price difference between lyft/uber and waymo

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

#37

Post by Analemma_ »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4
baxtr wrote: post #2

Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this. Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe being alone in the car makes a better ride?

I pay a premium for Waymos. No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.

The “consistently clean” part won’t last, that’s just because they’re new. In 2010 “they’re consistently clean” was an advantage of Ubers over yellow cabs, which of course is gone now. But I agree with the rest of this.

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

#38

Post by sundaeofshock »

agumonkey wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay a premium for Waymos. No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.

What about driving safety ?

Very safe. They obey most traffic rules and don’t do stupid things. I have friends who commute in bike and say they feel safer with Waymo’s on the street. As a pedestrian, I appreciate them since I don’t worry it might run me over when I’m crossing the street.

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

#39

Post by tialaramex »

dboreham wrote: post #5
baxtr wrote: post #2

Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this. Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe being alone in the car makes a better ride?

"Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature. Don't have to interact with a person. No weed/cigarette smell. And so on. Also a computer may not drive as well as the best human but it will always drive much better than the worst human.

> "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature.

I remember this came up for self-checkout at grocery stores. Personally I mildly prefer not interacting, for one friend this is a huge psychological difference, they are much more able to shop when it doesn't involve trying to talk to a human. It's not impossible anyway but you can see it's a real burden.

If I want to interact with a human there's no reason that should be a financial transaction. I can believe you would get a Waymo to a bar, hang out with friends (or even strangers) and then get a Waymo home, because you wanted the social interactions to be entirely separate from the financial transaction.

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

#40

Post by Jelthi »

milesskorpen wrote: post #29
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay a premium for Waymos. No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The ride won’t cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they’re more fun because they're novel.

The tip piece is interesting - that'd close a big chunk of the price gap, if people are tipping 10-20%

I do. Sometimes almost 50%. I also do dumb things like order an Uber Black because I wanted a nicer ride or an XL because I don’t want to be shoved in the back of a model 3 even with just 2 people.
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