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Comment by gitah | Hacker News Reader

The main point is missing the forest for the trees. The main benefit of self-driving cars is improving efficiency and productivity. It is productivity that makes us all much richer.

Which business model self-driving taxi operators go by is pretty irrelevant; the free market will settle on the best way. The productivity increases will benefits the entire society should be the most important part of any analysis.

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But the article is about self-driving taxis. There is little productivity gain there for the users, since they are already free to spend their time in the car working or doing whatever they like, driver or no driver. Likewise, self-driving cars won't make everyone richer, taxi drivers will definitely be on the losing side.

> It is productivity that makes us all much richer.

It is productivity that makes the owners of the productive assets richer, not "us all" (whether that somehow reaches others is dependent on factors other than the productivity boost itself.)

Nope even if you don't own assets you still benefit from increased productivity. The average person don't own airliners, but still benefit from cheap air fare tickets.

With a free market and self-driving taxis, the price of transportation will collapse which will benefit everyone. The wealth that used to be spent on transportation can be used to by other goods, which will make everyone richer.

This is incorrect. In order for the asset owner to gain from an increase in productivity they to interact with customers, workers and suppliers who in turn interact with others. This ends up sharing much if not most or even all of the gain with others. You are correct that many factors will determine how the gain gets allocated but only in exceptional circumstances does the owner keep all the gain.

https://www.boundless.com/economics/textbooks/boundless-econ...

When you factor in the safety features of self-driving cars, the automated traffic management/reduction in the number of private cars, and the ability of less-well-off people to get to work in less time and make it home to see their families... seems to benefit everyone.

If we can reduce the cost of transportation (even through subsidies) for the poorest, that opens up opportunities.

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