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Comment by spaceman_2020 | Hacker News Reader

spaceman_2020

Unless you take all human driven cars off the road, you’re not going to get nearly the efficiency and safety you describe.

I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber.

Big Tech has way, way too much power already. Please don’t give them any more of it.

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> I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber.

Seems like a red herring. I think it’s safe to assume that you will be able to own your own SDC, and the faster Google gets this tech scaled, the sooner you can affordably purchase one.

Will the SDC not get any updates over the internet? What Google decides to lock me out? Or show me unskippable ads before starting the car?

I don’t think the self driving car cheerleaders have thought this out.

If there's no law to prevent it, "traditional" cars will also soon come with unskippable ads. At least, that's the way how "traditional" TV manufacturers went. And if there is a law against it, Google or VW isn't a meaningful distinction anymore.

Nothing will stop someone from building a SDC that doesn't have the ability to be locked out like that.

The tech to do this is getting easier each year.

We’re down to a duopoly in the smartphone market. For most of us without a desktop/laptop (the bulk of global internet users), our digital lives are essentially controlled by Apple and Google.

Why would this be any different with SDCs? The tech might be getting easier, but current market forces make it far easier for the big players to monopolize the market.

There are a lot of competing car makers. In theory, they should select from multiple competing offerings.

Then again, they haven't always done well with that in supplier selection. You might be right, they might end up largely tying themselves to a few suppliers.

OTOH, the network effects shouldn't be as strong. It isn't hard to imagine FOSS options like OpenPilot continuing to exist.

Selling self-driving cars at cost is not the profit-maximizing strategy here.

With Google (and big tech) squeezing more and more for profits, some here even proclaiming it the new IBM, I don't see this ending with consumers winning.

I think you’re assuming (incorrectly) that Google will have a monopoly on SDC technology. There are already many big players in the space, so the profit maximizing strategy is probably much closer to what the consumer actually wants.

It doesn’t seem to me like there’s a big competitive moat other than $xxb in R&D costs, so if there is unmet consumer demand for self-owned SDC, it’s probably safe to assume someone will cough up the R&D costs.

Would I be purchasing it from Google ? Android Car (tm)?

Google or someone they partner with will likely be an option. Another will be Cruise or whoever they partner with. Or, Tesla.

Not sure that really makes much difference, it will be like buying an android phone. Full of tracking and spyware.

That is what government regulations are for. No one freaks about about Amtrak suddenly deciding who can and can't ride their trains.

MasterCard can and does decide who can or cannot take payments and nobody gives a damn either

Lots of people give a damn, laws surrounding that exacts issue have changed in the past and obviously they can be changed again in the future.

True, but the self-driving cars argument has always been that if all cars on the road are replaced by self-driving cars, you will have no road deaths.

Which pretty much means that in this future, you will have no choice but to use a self-driving car. Which gives disproportionate power to automobile/SDC companies.

If the only motorized way to move from point A to B was Amtrak, I would be worried about the power Amtrak has over my physical movement too.

If you rely on human-operated cars for transport, your ability to go anywhere is already controlled by large institutions.

- You require a car manufacturer like Ford or Toyota to manufacture and sell you a vehicle.

- You require an insurance company to cover your liability.

- The government must issue you a license, which it may take away at any time for not abiding by its traffic laws.

Well, you atleast have some control over the government and can theoretically vote out any policies that would deny you the license to drive a vehicle.

Google is not beholden to any democratic process and can summarily deny my request to go somewhere.

TBH, that's a fallacy. You don't have to get rid of literally every human driver to get vastly better safety for VRUs.

Just reducing it to only the people who choose to drive will make a big difference.

> I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber.

Great news! If you join the tens of thousands of people who die from driving related deaths every year in the US, you won’t have to.

As a society, you have to make a decision between perfect freedom and perfect tyranny. Its never a clear cut choice and the reality is always somewhere in between.

But surely I can’t be the only one concerned about companies that already own my digital lives now also encroaching upon my physical life?

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