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Comment by the8472 | Hacker News Reader

But it's a reduction of privacy compared to private vehicles. If the goal is to convert all transportation infrastructure into surveilled transportation then that is a loss in privacy for the general public.

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That is acceptable (and even desirable) for these people.

Only the few who can afford luxury deserve privacy.

You can raise that argument when they actually prevent you from owning your own vehicle.

No, the argument should be raised before that happens. You want to prevent undesirable things from happening, not try to claw them back after they happened.

It looks quite foolish to me to never plan ahead and predict undesirable future events and then trying to prevent them ahead of time.

"Sorry, we can't fulfill your request for transportation to the protest for private ownership, but we can offer a free ride to the Colosseum" ;)

I meant to imply that it's ridiculous because no one is trying to make that happen...

I don't think their primary intent is to create a surveillance state (though google might like having yet another data source...), I think companies are trying to make it happen to capture transportation market share, regulators will want to make it happen to drive down traffic fatalities and insurers will incentivize it because human drivers are more costly. And once the difference in how they can be regulated is clear there'll be additional incentives to discourage private transportation.

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