Comment by ericmcer
3 months ago
It must be interesting being an Uber driver right now and literally watching the robots that will replace you driving around with you.
This has been a 15+ year process and will probably take a few more years. I don't feel too bad if they didn't manage to pivot in that time period.
"It must be interesting being an Uber driver right now and literally watching the robots that will replace you driving around with you."
You mean the way taxi drivers had to watch as Uber and Lyft replaced them?
I imagine most traditional taxi drivers converted into Uber and Lyft drivers. Unique regulatory circumstances in places like NYC might have delayed that process some of course (eg trying to pay off a medallion).
Uber and Lyft drivers are taxi drivers.
Drivers rarely owned the medallion. They leased the cab for 8-12 hours and drove it on behalf of the medallion owner.
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I've been in plenty of Uber & Lyft rides in what were literally taxis.
> You mean the way taxi drivers had to watch as Uber and Lyft replaced them?
For the most part, they were the same drivers I think
That was a slightly different business model, vs a different technology.
It's funny how "exploit workers worse (medallions) and worse (rideshares) until we can fully cut them out" has played out in such a perfect microcosm, and yet somehow people here don't seem to register that it was never the workers' own fault.
Taxis didn't lose because rideshares played the game better, they lost because rideshare companies used investor money to leapfrog their apps, ignored actual commercial transport regulations that would have made them DOA, and then exploited workers by claiming they weren't even employees, all so they could artificially undercut taxis to kill them off and capture the market before enshittifying.
Taxi drivers were already not employees, they were exploited contractors for the taxi companies.
And do you not remember what using Yellow Cab was like in the Bay? It was like being kidnapped. They'd pretend their credit card reader was broken and forcibly drive you to an ATM to pay them.
When I first moved here I went to EPA Ikea, afterwards tried to get home via taxi, and literally couldn't because there was a game at Stanford that was more profitable so they just refused to pick me up for hours. I had to call my manager and ask him to get me. (…Which he couldn't because he was drinking, so I had to walk to the Four Seasons and use the car service.)
Taxis lost at least partly because the workers were assholes. Refusing to take credit card payments (the card reader is "broken") or not picking up members of certain ethnic groups or not driving to certain areas. Sure some cabbies were nice, honest people with good customer service skills but those were the exception in many cities.
There was nothing stopping taxi companies from raising investor capital to build better apps and back end technology infrastructure. They were just lazy and incompetent.
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Taxi companies didn't have any apps to leapfrog in the first place. Uber and Lyft created a superior product that people wanted. Doesn't matter whose fault it is, the buyers preferred something that was more convenient.
There was never a situation where uneducated cabbies on shoestring budgets were going to be able to develop an Uber/Lyft alternative.
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Enshittifying? It's still better than taxis ever were and competition between providers is preventing that from regressing.
You say the term pivot like its a startup founder who has every option in life. You should feel bad for anyone who would struggle for a basic job.
the history of humans on earth has been pivots, even amongst people who had few options.
I don't subscribe to feeling guilty every time somebody loses a job. I feel empathy, but telling people to "feel bad" is not constructive.
In a society where having a job is, for that vast majority not in the non-gilded classes, the only mechanism by which a person can secure their core needs.. losing a job is indeed a pitiable situation for most.
If we've built a society that when it "pivots" leaves swathes of people smeared out as residual waste, I'd argue we should feel bad.
We've certainly reached a point of technological advancement where many of these consequences at the individual level are avoidable. If they're still happening, it's because we've chosen this outcome - perhaps passively. But the clear implication of would be that we're collectively failing ourselves, as a species that tends to put some degree of pride in our intelligence.
And we should feel bad about that failure. It's OK to feel bad about that failure. We tend not to improve things we don't feel bad about.
"Feel bad for" is not the same as "feel bad". The former is the same as feeling empathy, in colloquial English
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It's interesting that we're on the cusp of a major change in our world and no one is really talking about it. Self driving cars will have a profound impact on society. Everything from real estate to logistics will be impacted.
Looking forward to when they get rid of traffic lights and the networked cars just whiz through and avoid hitting each other. They'll also seamlessly zip lanes together on the highway, and traffic waves will be a thing of the past. Maybe China will do it first.
No thoughts on pedestrians? With no traffic lights it'd be a total nightmare to be a pedestrian
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Some places are less car-dependent. That plays a role
Actually i spoke a uber driver about this and he said he was waiting for cars with FSD available to buy then he could make his car work for him.
If he can create a buisness of operating a fleet of self driving cars fine, but 99% of regular taxi/uber drivers will loose their job.
cleaning 1 car can be a full time job.
> This has been a 15+ year process and will probably take a few more years.
In 1995 Navlab 5 completed the first autonomous US coast-to-coast journey. Traveling from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to San Diego, California.
The history is long, but the technology is finally here. Hopefully soon the technology will be everywhere.
> It must be interesting being an Uber driver right now and literally watching the robots that will replace you driving around with you.
You mean just like programmers watching AI replacing them?
AI doesn't replace programmers, it's used by programmers for efficiency.
Waymo is most definitely not being used by taxi or rideshare drivers to be more efficient.
If a programmer is more efficient with AI then you need fewer programmers, assuming a fixed amount of work is needed. So in that sense AI would be replacing programmers.
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Waymo definitely uses human drivers in some markets... currently
Just like AI still uses human programmers... currently
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As I understand, Waymo still uses humans in some circumstances. Theoretically, the drivers could do this job instead.
https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
If it doubles your efficiency, that's one less employee required.