I don't think all of the economic benefit stays in NYC even when you take a yellow cab. A significant share of NYC taxi medallions are owned by entities based outside the city. Marblegate Capital in Connecticut owns about 2,146 medallions—nearly 16% of all NYC taxi medallions. They make more profit off the medallion financing business than actually operating the taxis which is basically break-even AFAIK.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's somewhere on Zorhan's to-do list :)
Yeah but the plan of "ban them because the taxi drivers union said so" is ludicrous. Why not have a partial integration with re-training programs for existing taxi drivers, and work with the city council to establish laws that effectively strip Waymo of its profits for operating in the city, making them only barely break even, and siphoning the rest of the funds into the aforementioned retraining programs and transport infrastructure more broadly. Even a 3% profit margin in one of the largest markets in the world is better than none at all, Waymo is effectively forced to comply with any measures NYC imposes. This doesn't have to be the case nationally either: many areas are relatively underserved by even Uber and Lyft, and there is plenty of room for Waymo in those markets, and I imagine those "empty" parts of the US, in total, eclipse the size of NYC. There, it will be nothing but a boon. But in established cities like NYC, it is almost certainly best practice to keep as much profit in the local economy as possible, since Waymo is not, in the end, drastically multiplying economic productivity in those cities.
Then again, the areas underserved by Uber/Lyft are underserved because they're bad neighborhoods so drivers won't go there. How many Waymos need to be torched or their passengers carjacked before Waymo decides to stop going there? Fun fact, if you throw a traffic cone at the Waymo, it panics and stops moving, meaning your can now break the rear windows and assault the passengers for their valuables. If you wear a mask and leave your phone at home, there's no recourse for the passengers.
I was thinking of rural areas, not dangerous neighbourhoods, which are already served by uber/lyft