Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by robocat » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:08 PM UTC

MegaButts wrote: post #252

silvr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minority view here I'm sure but maybe profits are a just reward for inventing the future - this is literally science fiction come to life

Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public transit. These vehicles clearly have utility beyond just public transit, but I'd rather they be an edge case rather than considered a main solution. So yeah, from my perspective the problem is being focused on profits instead of trying to solve the real problem with solutions that have already existed for decades. If you zoom out a bit, your argument would be…

> Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public transit

False dichotomy.

Good public transport would be self driving cars as a feeder network to mass transit once the self driving tech is cheap enough.

It could only work well as work habits change to stop having peak hours (peak usage for low-utilization self-driving cars doesn't seem likely to be economical).

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

#342

Post by ratorx » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:08 PM UTC

flutas wrote: post #296

bertil wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which point would you expect to deteriorate?

not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently for example. second I'd assume they would start charging you for point 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load, after all that's missed profit from other rides. after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a Ioniq 5 (much cheap…

Being pedantic, even if you have to pay for a type of car, you still have no variance to expectation when you know what you are getting. I think that point was more about the variance in driving, driver etc rather than car type.

Re: enshittification in general. I think the incentives are better aligned for self-driving. Eg. charging people who create trash etc can also make the company money whilst improving overall experience.

With non self-driving, you have to rely on user ratings etc to penalise a specific driver, which seems inherently more fuzzy. The company has conflicting goals of keeping enough drivers (drives costs down etc), whilst guaranteeing a certain experience. It is difficult to create a system for drivers to “improve” (eg. Clean their car) and for a company to directly encourage that, whereas it’s easier to just charge people who litter more etc in a fully automated system.

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

#343

Post by fluidcruft » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:10 PM UTC

chipsrafferty wrote: post #315

fluidcruft wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a wash.

You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft, either.

Sure, nobody has to tip anyone. But I do tip taxis and etc, typically about 30%, and it factors into my overall price perception.

I'm just saying $15 that I will add a tip to vs $20 that I have no intention or inclination to tip isn't anything more than I don't have any expectations or empathy about tipping a machine. It doesn't seem particularly complex an issue about why Waymo can charge the same amount that I am willing to pay anyway.

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

#344

Post by freddie_mercury » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:11 PM UTC

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.

Uber was never child friendly.

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

#345

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:14 PM UTC

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 actually a really interesting question. Because it's not necessarily about handling most usage, but also about handling peak usage. Is it worth the cost to keep everything 4-seater if that means they can all enter "carpool mode" whenever required at times of peak demand?

Because once they become ubiquitous, I suspect the vast majority will be operating in carpool mode at rush hour. Most people won't be willing to pay 4x to get a private vehicle if they're by themselves. Especially since the more vehicles there are, the more efficient carpool mode becomes for everyone.

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

#346

Post by kristopolous » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:17 PM UTC

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…

> Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd jobs.

Kind of. American tipping came out of the post-slavery south as a form of exploitation where people weren't guaranteed a wage.

This is why tipping was common in historically black jobs like hospitality, food service workers and railroad porters.

There still a federal "tipped" minimum wage at $2.13 - which some states still abide by, roughly corresponding to the historic south https://www.epi.org/publication/waiting-for-change-tipped-mi...

These also seem to be some of the worst tipping states according to most sources, https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/the-united-states-of-tipping...

Which kind of makes sense - if people in those states invented tipping to pay people less, then those states paying tipped people less isn't that surprising ...

Cultural behavior patterns last decades, which is why there's some dissipation 150 years later.

These things can be weird. For instance coat check (person who holds on to expensive coat) and car valet (person who holds on to expensive car) is functionally equivalent with a 100 year separation so the tip culture sticks.

Same goes for the shoe shiner and car washer; the person who makes your mode of transportation more presentable.

Maybe this sounds like crazy free association, but the pattern seems to hold. Take porters and food delivery drivers, for instance, not that different.

Anyway, when you start scratching at weird american anomalies like tipping and the electoral college, usually you find something to do with slavery's long tail.

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

#347

Post by balfirevic » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:17 PM UTC

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…

> They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for example

Using an app for taxi booking is so superior to ordering by phone (even excluding potential preference for not talking to service providers) that I have trouble understanding what's puzzling you.

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

#348

Post by kelnos » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:19 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #249

kelnos wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could be 100% certain that every Uber/Lyft driver I encounter would give me a perfect "social" experience (where "perfect" varies for me depending on the day), I'd choose it over Waymo at the same price. But of course that's unreasonable and impossible to expect. So for a comparable price and wait/drive time I'll pretty much always pick Waymo. It does make me sad to some extent; I do enjoy interacting with peopl…

When I take a booked private car back and forth to the airport (about an hour) I don't really have an issue. Sometimes the driver is chattier. Sometimes I'm chattier. Probably (likely) more expensive than an Uber would be but 100% reliable even at zero-dark-thirty times. Never had a real issue of any sort.

Uber Black provides a similar experience, or at least it used to (haven't used it in many years). I think it's a matter of having professional drivers, where there's an expectation that their customer/client isn't there to socialize, and their job is to drive, and that's it. It's more of a "high class" thing, for lack of a better term.

(IIRC when Uber first started, before UberX, their driver pool was essentially just this sort: people who drove for private car services.)

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

#349

Post by reddalo » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:19 PM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #294

jopsen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$3 isn't this kind of a small problem? I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need one.

$3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2. At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going…

Speaking of small costs, some time ago I paid 2 euros with my credit card in order to enter the central train station toilets in Milan, Italy.

The toilets were awfully dirty, there was no toilet paper and no soap. I took some pictures just in case, then I filed a chargeback with my bank. After some weeks, they gave me my 2 euros back, and the company that manages the toilets probably paid a small fine to MasterCard or whatever.

Was it a waste of time, for just 2 euros? Sure. But if nobody starts complaining, nothing will ever be fixed.

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

#350

Post by usehand » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

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…

Charges for goods not delivered as agreed falls under the protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act. If you made a good faith attempt to resolve with the merchant (which you did) you should use your credit card to charge back the amount (some let you request a partial charge back, but if not you can request a full one and explain in the extra info that you want a partial one).

This might not seem worth it for $3, but if they get a lot of these the credit cards/banks might start giving them a hard time about it, so I think it's worth the minor hassle (everything can be done via the credit card app usually)