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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

#791

Post by Retric »

chii wrote: post #785
Retric wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chargebacks are the reverse of these kinds of small thefts. A company is free to take you to small claims court over a chargeback, it’s really not worth their time though. As such it’s often preferable for an individual vs arbitration.

> it’s really not worth their time though. no, but a company has more levers than just small claims court - such as banning you from doing business with them, and removing all existing relationships. Google, for example, could ban you off gmail, remove your storage in gdrive, and take away all of your youtube videos. A big enough company with your data/process/utility that you must rely on and is locked in, would hav…

Google can do that to you, they can’t do that to a billion people without serious repercussions on their business.

This is why they don’t delete Google accounts of everyone using an add blocker for example.

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

#792

Post by lurking_swe »

icelancer wrote: post #563
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume the surveillance will go away as they become cheaper? The taxi company know who is in their car and they have access to interior cameras if something happens. In many respects, it is going to be even more difficult to take a dump in one and get away with it than if a human was driving it. They have your credit card number and visual evidence of what you did, they will just charge your card automatic…

Because if they ever become super popular, it will be prohibitively expensive to actually police all the surveillance. Likely to store / process it all. AI does an alright job summarizing videos today (Gemini Flash) but it has to get a lot better if they're going to actually police at scale.

I think simple solutions exist. For example the waymo could just ask the rider at the beginning of the ride “Is your car smelly? Any trash in the car?”

If they reply YES to any of those questions, then google keeps the recording of the previous ride for later review. Simple, no?

If the car actually was dirty, give the person that said “car was dirty” a refund of 20% on their ride. Then charge the party that made the car dirty a few. If a person is found to consistently say cars are dirty when they are not, give them a warning and consider kicking them off the platform (abuse).

Alternatively google can switch from recording the first minute of the ride to the last minute of the ride. In other words, only look at the “delta” to compare the car state. That would require a lot less video storage and less effort to review.

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

#793

Post by Den_VR »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #374
doctorpangloss wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simpler explanation is that Google mismanages its pay-per-use consumer-facing products. Consider Google One and YouTube Premium are also overpriced, and everyone tells them so. It's obviously a mistake to charge more than Uber or Lyft, it's crazy obvious, like mind meltingly obvious. Sometimes it's just the obvious thing. Google's problem is that its management is so bad, it doesn't understand: just because somet…

"One of the most valuable companies on the planet is mismanaging its products" see the issue with that assertion?

Google mismanages an enormous number of things. Users, Customers, Products, Teams, Talent. You can observe this in your interactions with Google/Alphabet and in ex-googler post-mortems.

They are amazingly valuable as a stock, as a business and as a collection of talent. That doesn’t entirely excuse failures of vision and leadership, let alone pricing.

Edit: That said, I am inclined to believe that Alphabet pricing likely better reflects reality. The others have some bad habits.

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

#794

Post by aunty_helen »

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…

You’ve got to invest with the VC money. As companies mature and enshitification begins, jump onto the next hot thing that’s going to disrupt the now incumbent.

There’s no free lunch, but this is the closest we’ve got.

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

#795

Post by specialist »

Ride share grifts (Uber, Lyft) extract wealth from drivers. Morally equiv to MLMs, value added resellers, platforms (Amazon, Spotify, Meta, etc).

It feels icky being an accomplice.

Less importantly, I now despise the degradation of driving etiquette and overall safety. At least as much as I despised taxis. eg don't block traffic loading / unloading; there's a loading zone RIGHT THERE, ffs.

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

#796

Post by lotsofpulp »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #772
lotsofpulp wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to sit to program, and there are generally far more degrees of freedom, e.g. bathroom breaks and eating healthy food from a fridge and microwave, etc. Also, many/most taxi drivers have to regularly work evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. (Also upping the risk due to sleepy or drunk drivers).

Uber drivers can take a break and pick their own hours whenever they want. They can even nap wherever they want. Still not grueling imo.

This is just devolving into a dispute about the definition of grueling.

The dictionary says “extremely tiring and demanding”. Letting random people into your space, putting your primary income generating asset at risk, being on constant alert, and working long, undesirable hours that results in health problems qualifies as grueling for me. Maybe not as grueling as some other types of labor, but obviously more grueling than 95% of programming jobs.

The drivers taking constant breaks and working whenever they feel like it are not the ones earning any decent amount of money.

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

#797

Post by specialist »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #474
kanbara wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is 10000% the wrong approach— the approach is to build better, more walkable cities, with better zoning, and public transit so elderly or disabled people aren’t left out of society. these people shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car; to me one of the biggest annoyances with american life

My father can barely walk a block before he needs to sit and rest. Your plan would not work for him. A more walkable city would be great for me, someone who can walk well. Him? Nope.

So roughly the distance from the car to the store's entrance.

In a neighborhood like Culdesac Mesa AZ, your father could downsize to an electric scooter. And maybe meet his neighbors.

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

#798

Post by onislandtime »

icelancer wrote: post #563
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume the surveillance will go away as they become cheaper? The taxi company know who is in their car and they have access to interior cameras if something happens. In many respects, it is going to be even more difficult to take a dump in one and get away with it than if a human was driving it. They have your credit card number and visual evidence of what you did, they will just charge your card automatic…

Because if they ever become super popular, it will be prohibitively expensive to actually police all the surveillance. Likely to store / process it all. AI does an alright job summarizing videos today (Gemini Flash) but it has to get a lot better if they're going to actually police at scale.

it's actually pretty easy to automate the state of the vehicle. if anything is left in the car the video is sent to an operator. The service instructs a cleaner to check the car and the passenger is sent a warning and eventually is banned from using the service.

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

#799

Post by whimsicalism »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #700
whimsicalism wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.

Heh, from the sounds of things it’s more likely the Waymo would have simply driven to their actual destination. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44281694

these tales are generally the apocryphal dreams of suburbanites. the uber driver would have pulled a gun on you?

i’m sorry but i grew up in urban America, nobody is mugging people under an account tied to their name/DL

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

#800

Post by whimsicalism »

School-Cotton wrote: post #691
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. Just as another point. I mentioned the story to another friend, who used to be a cabbie, and he said "Oh, that was a gypsy cab robbery. Classic." Apparently, the way that it works, is that the cab takes you to a bad neighborhood, then tells you to get out, unless you pay. If my friend had tried getting physical, he would have been staring into the muzzle of a .38, so the talk of physical threats was likely bulls…

The original story was that your friend gave Uber the wrong address, and the Uber refused to take them onward after that, even for more money. Now the story is that the Uber intentionally took them to the wrong address, and then offered to take them onward in an attempt to extort more money. Those are completely different stories! Which is it?

it’s also just so premised on a ridiculous fantasy of how urban america functions
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