Comment by habosa
2 days ago
I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s <= $5 more for these reasons:
1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10.
2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber.
3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impatient.
4. They’re very clean. I’ve never been in a dirty or bad smelling Waymo. That’s very nice.
5. No aggressive driving. I’ve had Ubers that scare me weaving between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
6. No tip
For me this goes higher up in this list
I’m seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a rolled up bundle of used bandages.
People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars condition important. For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They’ll be cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for. Private driverless cars will be the premium alternative.
People adapt. Hopefully it will be more like elevators and less like public toilets.
And then there will be cameras
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Why do you assume the surveillance will go away as they become cheaper? The taxi company know who is in their car and they have access to interior cameras if something happens. In many respects, it is going to be even more difficult to take a dump in one and get away with it than if a human was driving it. They have your credit card number and visual evidence of what you did, they will just charge your card automatically for things like puking.
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> For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom.
So, like transit?
I will likely have my own personal self-driving vehicle. And I'm 100% sure that there'll be an upmarket segment with slightly more expensive cars that are kept more clean than the rest.
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Were you able to flag it to Waymo?
did you report it? Ideally the person that left the bandages in the car would get flagged. They get flagged a few more times for littering in the car they get banned.
Yes, you don't know if it was the previous person, previous previous, etc but if they are a repeat litterer it won't take long to figure out who it is and warn them they'll lose their privilege to use the service if they continue to abuse it.
You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
Uber was never child friendly.
in LA all my friend's little kids take uber and Lyft rides to catch Pokemon. don't know what hellhole you live that's worse than LA
Not yet enshittified > currently enshitiffied
If they get worse, I’ll. Choose something else if I want.
They’re not in my area today, but just because they may get worse does t mean you should avoid them today.
All the while though, they’re taking the air out of the room for any alternatives you might choose in the future. It only gets really enshittified once market dominance has been established.
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Waymo should charge dirty customers more to pay maids to clean it.
they kinda too, they will charge you $50/$100 if you make the car dirty
https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/14248697?hl=en
Which point would you expect to deteriorate?
not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation
I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently for example.
second I'd assume they would start charging you for point 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load, after all that's missed profit from other rides.
after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a Ioniq 5 (much cheaper feeling car than a Jag, with hard plastic everywhere). You want the jag? Expect to pay for it. So suddenly all cars aren't the same, and only some are comparable to Uber Black.
To summarize:
Point 4, followed by 3, followed by 2 and 1 (which imo are just one point). 5 I don't expect to change unless they have to start cost-cutting on compute and sensors, but I HIGHLY doubt that.
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