Tried Waymo in SF. Didn't take a single cab/Uber after and only used Waymo during my trip.
Putting my own music and not having to interact with anyone is pretty great.
Putting my own music and not having to interact with anyone is pretty great.
Statistics after hundreds of millions of miles driven are compelling.
But my own subjective confidence in how it drives and the decisions it makes in very challenging and ambiguous situations allow me to trust it far more than most Uber drivers.
With Uber, I feel uneasy to moderately frightened probably three rides in ten. With Waymo I've never felt at risk.
I'm pretty sure Waymo is a safer driver than I am.
Same. I don't think enough credit is given to the inexhaustible attention, superhuman reaction time, and superhuman sensing (360 lidar, etc.) of Waymo.
The experience was nice enough but the exact same destination I wanted was serviced by a good-enough bus at 1/5 the price.
Bleak.
And then questions get asked of how techies have become so despised by part of the general population and why they feel so out of touch in comparison to said general population. We’ve become averse to even holding the proverbial chat with the proverbial taxi driver.
And saying taxis are like public transportation, because another person is driving you, is going in favor of OPs point out people here being out of touch.
So, if you have to wait 5mins for Waymo (as they scale up) vs 10 mins circling around to find a parking spot, which is better?
Anecdotally, most of my female friends here in LA prefer Waymo over Uber for this reason (safety), especially when leaving bars late at night.
Mostly because a bunch of stereotypical socially maladjusted nerds is an easy target to manufacture and then blame for social issues adjacent to tech products, despite the fact that almost all the evil is not in tech per se, but in business models around it, despite the fact that it's all commissioned and funded and driven by the much more gregarious business types.
I guess this is America: business sharks are the lambs that do no wrong, even if they eat their customers, competition and environment alive. Let's blame literally anyone else than those directly responsible.
Life's grey areas and nuances tend to be like that.
Edit to respond to your own edit: If you think the business class is without criticism these days, then I'm a bit shocked and very curious to know where you're getting your news. I see it everywhere, even here on HN.
Ever consider that maybe some of those "techies" were maybe mistreated and abused by so-called "normal" folks purely for their interest in technology and science topics? Bullied, hated, insulted, phyiscally attacked even? Not for any valid reasons, nor even because they were "out of touch", but became out of touch and averse to interacting with others due to all the ongoing abuse over their interest in a topic that dirtbag bully types consider "nerdy"? Reading bad! Learning bad! Trying to better one's self BAD! Absuing others GOOD! Maybe after many years of that kinda treatment, some of us are more comfortable with machines than we are with humans because so many humans are just literal monsters, and not worth trying to interact with.
Get off your incredibly high horse.