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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

Have you taken a Waymo before? The car and ride in general is much nicer than your average Uber or Lyft ride.

I have not and I believe you. But seriously, the incentive for automating anything is cost. Even if it's nicer, the removal of the driver does not make it a "premium" service, it makes it an automated service. The expectation is lower cost not higher. I know that supply and demand and competition right now might be at a place where the same price for eventually the same service is expected. But still "at no additional cost" read hilarious.

> the incentive for automating anything is cost

Cost savings are a huge factor, but in self-driving (and other areas) safety and consistency are equally important.

Waymo's make mistakes, but they don't get tired, drunk, distracted, or angry.

Anecdotally, I use rideshare every workday for last-mile transit from the train station, and I’ll pick the $13 Waymo over the $7 Uber every time. There are some inherent advantages to the self-driving, like improved safety [0] and not having to talk to the driver, but the main benefits are that it’s just a consistent experience with nice quiet cars, ~90%-ile driving quality, and much more accurate time estimates.

I look forward to competition bringing prices down, but on pure quality and willingness to pay, the premium price seems to make sense.

[0] https://waymo.com/research/do-autonomous-vehicles-outperform...

Maybe that's the true progress in self-driving. It's cheaper and better. It's a win/win. Now we just need UBI and it can be a win/win/win.

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