Having let go of my car years ago and having never missed it, I feel that car ownership is still not cheap enough to make sense, and we can do better.

I realize that if you live out in the countryside or in the suburbs, the car is your lifeline. But for city folk cars are a luxury. You can walk everywhere you need, you can use Instacart and Amazon to handle groceries and shopping, and, if you're lucky, you can work on distributed teams. You never need to get behind the wheel, and even then you're better off getting a Lyft.

$250/mo for a parking spot where random people can still scratch up, dent or break into your car. $100-200 for insurance, $x for gas, $300+ for financing or leasing a car, $y for repairs and maintenance, $z for tickets and parking meters.. This stuff adds up. If you only need the car occasionally, let's say a couple of times a month on the weekends, then this system is horribly inefficient.

Of course you end up paying more for living close to work in say.. downtown Seattle, NYC, SF, LA etc... but the tradeoff is to move to the burbs, shave off $1000 from your rent, and instead spend that same amount on your car, in addition to now having to sit in traffic jams for an hour or two every day? No, thanks.

I'm hoping networks of press-a-button-on-phone-receive-car systems like Zipcar keep expanding. Seems like their growth has been sub-linear at best this last few years.