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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

#851

Post by arcfour »

bgwalter wrote: post #639
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…

Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries. You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.

And thank God Uber and Lyft destroyed the dysfunctional Taxi racket, might I add.

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

#852

Post by lokar »

notyourwork wrote: post #770
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional drivers) as an option In my experience, Uber Black means the driver owns a professional-grade car. Whether they’re a professional driver who treats their clients professionally, e.g. not taking phone calls during the ride, is another matter.

This, black car service is not what uber offers. They offer a uber driver with a black car.

It depends on location

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

#853

Post by pempem »

pempem wrote: post #561
wileydragonfly wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $3 your credit card company is just going to comp it to you and move on.

Many, Many millions have been made on pennies pulled from consumers daily. $3 in a personal vacuum is one thing (and still adds up if you consider each service that could do this) $3 across 20% of users, lets say, globally, daily. Adds up. Consumers have the ability to also contribute to and define how engagements with businesses look. If the government won't help us, we have to continue on our own.

Here are some examples:

Cramming schemes

TMobile - 2014 The FTC sued Tmobile alleging it knowingly kept 30–40% of fraudulent charges Tmobile settled for $90 million: at least $67.5M refunded to consumers, $18M to states/AGs, and $4.5M to the FCC

AT&T: $105 million for unauthorized premium SMS billing

Dodd‑Frank’s Durbin Amendment (2010): Congress required the Federal Reserve to cap debit‑card swipe (interchange) fees—typically a few cents—forcing banks to drop excessive micropayments to retailers. Because previously they were. And it was resulting in millions

State Attorneys General vs. Marriott (2021–2022) Hidden “resort fees” tacked onto hotel bills—$10–$35 per night. The Pennsylvania AG and coalition sued; Marriott settled and began disclosing mandatory fees upfront

Walmart: $45 million settlement no admission of guilt, but Walmart agreed to compensate shoppers who bought specified items from October 19, 2018, to January 19, 2024 for a max of $500 even though they knew they were overcharging customers

WholeFoods had a similar case, purposefully misweighing items

The list goes on and on.

The question on the table is: why pursue $3 for not getting the thing you ordered. Is it fair? Does it matter?

Based on continuous corporate fraud, I would say not calling it out will make it worse.

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

#854

Post by Den_VR »

Den_VR wrote: post #793
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 li…

Swinging back around again, the notion of “failures of vision” still on my mind.

Talk about overloaded. The two framings I was thinking of was first from an engineering & design perspective, but also second from an alignment perspective.

Some people recoil in horror when they look upon what Elon has done, but what a multinational corporation - one that has become engrained in daily life - can do when aligned to anything but the dollar is astonishing. Ironically it’s not something money can buy.

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

#855

Post by discordance »

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.

Wheelchairs and other assistive devices work well in walkable cities.

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

#856

Post by intended »

seydor wrote: post #592
fnordpiglet wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars condition important. For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They’ll be cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for. Private driverless cars will be the premium alternative.

People adapt. Hopefully it will be more like elevators and less like public toilets. And then there will be cameras

Nah, cameras work as long as people are watching and infractions are punished. You need a high conviction rate. Without that people realize that theres a good chance nothing happens, so they stop caring.

Forcing people to pay, and then using that payment to ensure upkeep, is what makes a difference.

Waymo will be making way for cheap versions, where costs are even lower and upkeep a suggestion.

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

#857

Post by chii »

Retric wrote: post #791
chii wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

no, they cannot do it to all their customers, but they dont need to. The threat of having it done to you makes you compliant. It's why consumer laws need to exist, and need to have teeth.

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

#859

Post by jart »

gnabgib wrote: post #845
jart wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why I've never had that ability then.

You have to click on the time of a comment (eg "2 days ago", "1 hour ago") to see the [flag] link, and you have to have show-dead turned on to see the [vouch] links. They're not super obvious in the UI by default, but you probably have the ability. You'll see a lot more bots/spammers/noise if you have show-dead turned on.

Wow thanks. I’ve probably spent a thousand hours reading hacker news comments and never noticed.

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

#860

Post by Retric »

chii wrote: post #857
Retric wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

no, they cannot do it to all their customers, but they dont need to. The threat of having it done to you makes you compliant. It's why consumer laws need to exist, and need to have teeth.

The threat of being kicked off of Google isn’t enough to make me or likely billions of other people to stop using an add blocker on the web.

The only time they actually push people on that issue is with YouTube due to their very strong market position.

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