Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?
Whether this translates to Waymos smelling like meth or fentanyl when you get in them thanks to the previous rider remains to be seen. Or just needles, foil, or used condoms left behind. They record video, so Google could close the person's account so they won't be able to book Waymos with that account again, so we'll end up having to see how hard it is to create new accounts to use Waymo on to ban nuisance riders.
It's not a loaded question to ask what a person means when they introduce a term.
> The types of people are those who would assault others on some fashion.
That's a tautology. Nobody knows if a person fits the type of person who would assault someone, until after they've gone and assaulted someone.
/s
I agree with your point about the approach to the argument, but I think google has enough info to make a way to vet passengers by identifying if you are likely to trash a vehicle.
Granted in my work I've never made the attempt to smell fentanyl, but it isn't one with a reputation of having an odor. I assume you mean the smell of recreational users of fentanyl.
The funniest (or not if you’re not from SF) was a guy boarding a full bus with a 7 foot long dining table with the legs attached, arguing and threatening anyone who protested. Eventually he dropped the thing on someone’s foot and starting an altercation which delayed everyone by 15 mins.
The way this will manifest is the drunk idiot who'll puke all over the car. The bored asshole who carves his initials in the seat. The edgelord who gets their jollies out of destroying other people's stuff.
Good chance you had some in the original group as well, but early adopters are usually mostly people who deeply understand tech. Once that falls away, you have a less thorough understanding of tech, and a very surprised realization that booking something under your name that has cameras all over will likely result in you being held accountable for what you did. But after you did it.
How that'll play out in the long run is anyone's guess. If Waymo maintains rigorous enforcement and the courts actually play along, it might just work out. It's still going to be capital-intensive because we seem to have created a world where being a major asshole in public without consequences is kind of an entitlement people expect to have, and Waymo will need a very strong "yeah, not here" vibe to prevent that. Which requires a number of high-profile incidents.
Yes, the subtext of the question likely was "are you discriminating against the poor!?" If it was indeed, the answer to that question is "no, the ride pricing will do that".
This isn't about "commoners". It's that any large group of people contains assholes, assholes restrain themselves depending on circumstances, and the new users might well lack that understanding.
It's fundamentally not about "commoners", but about a knowledge-based restraint falling away. (As for the "commoners", you might also want to read the last part of my comment, instead of outraging)
Since you mention Uber, I can definitely see in my city how the quality of cars decreased and they started using almost inclusively cheap immigrants who realistically couldn't pass a drivers exam in my country and have on multiple occasions driven into wrong directions/ran red lights etc.
Also, Waymo isn't even Google. You might accuse me of overstating this, but truthfully they operate as a different company.
There are schemes where undocumented immigrants ask someone to activate their account on their behalf. In practice, the person giving you a ride could be literally anyone.
Don't they? Allowing messier, older, and less pleasant cars would increase the supply of drivers, allowing Uber to place lower bids on those drivers, lower their prices, increase volume and revenue, and increase profit.
Sometimes it's worth not worrying about problems too far in advance.
Hard for me to imagine this being a widespread problem. Probably about as much problem as there is with something similar happening in the elevator of a private building.
Subject has no recourse to appeal and is banned from life including his ancestors and spawns"