Comment by harmmonica
2 days ago
A bit off topic, but I've been a Waymo booster for a minute here, as you can see in my comment history, but here in LA their pricing has jumped the shark a bit. Yesterday it quoted me > $10/mile for a short, < 5 miles trip. That was the return trip after I had a less expensive price of around $6/mile to the original destination (still pricey!).
I have zero insight into their pricing mechanism, but I was getting in the car coming back from, no exaggeration, one of the most expensive cities on the planet and so if I was Waymo I would probably price that ride pretty aggressively based on the location alone. Then you throw in all the other data points Google has about its users and I had my first "fuck me" moment where dynamic pricing really slapped me in the face (I've seen it firsthand with the airlines but Waymo is particularly insidious because of the use of my Google history).
And of course I'm aware Waymo has to price high while they're fleet-constrained or folks are going to be waiting forever for a car, but I hope they don't get too content with the absurd margin at $10+/mile. They will be tempted to do just that and so instead of flooding the market with fleet decide they'll put just enough cars in service to maximize profit instead of going for market share (of all riders I mean). But I fear that's exactly what's going to happen until there's credible competition.
Waymo can come up with some extraordinarily high prices at times. Sometimes it may cost $4-$5 to get me to church, very early in the morning (a 3-mile, 10 minute ride.) Sometimes, it can cost $25+ to get me home from church at peak times, like Saturday evenings.
On Wednesday afternoon, before school dismissal, a cross-town, 50-minute epic ride cost me $33.39. But it also cost nearly $25 to go 2 miles on that same evening.
Upon introduction here in Phoenix, Waymo had a promotion called "GoPass" which you'd purchase for $10 and it lasted for 30 days. It would give an across-the-board 10% discount on every ride, and 5 free cancellations. It was a great deal if you were a heavy user. A few months ago, they killed that off and replaced it with "Waymo Premier" which is a $29.99 monthly subscription (auto-renews) with no discount. Instead, you earn Waymo Cash at a base rate of 10%, and you get those 5 free cancellations, and you also get priority pickup. That means, if you're not paying for Premier, you cannot get priority pickup, and you may wait a lot longer, depending on demand.
I'm still saving money with Premier, but sometimes the cost is outrageous. Especially considering that I'm qualified for disabled transport in the region, and they've got a new matching app that will let me get a Lyft or Uber for $3 flat fee, no tipping.
Are they actually allowed to dynamically price the rides based on information about you in particular? I understand a supply and demand based dynamic pricing model.
Personalized dynamic pricing seems like something that should absolutely be illegal across the board.
I said it and thought it but they’re saying they are not doing it by individual. Does that mean they have zero access to proprietary Google user activity? Anonymized/aggregated/etc. to inform pricing?
My intent is not to spread misinformation so I guess I’ll believe there’s a solid wall up between Waymo and Google data sharing.
Joining you at your "off topic" table, I think it is interesting how the words "jump the shark" have moved from the idea of a sort of loss of coherence in plotlines (writers are checked out) to a general term for a decrease in quality.
It's a natural metaphorical extension. The idea was that company CEOs developed incoherent plans, which lead to neglect of core values.
> But I fear that's exactly what's going to happen until there's credible competition.
Exactly. We could talk about the billions that Waymo has invested in developing this technology, and how much people really do like it, or how safe it is, but at the end of the day the only thing that will give us the reduced prices that this tech could deliver, is competition.
And that's how it should be.
(But they will always have to charge a bit more for this service due to the political sensitivities that require them to load up on local partners who will require a slice.)
Can you give more color on local partners? I don't think you mean Uber, like I think it was or maybe still is in Austin, but maybe that's what you mean.
And, yeah, them charging more makes sense strictly on quality of experience so a price premium makes sense, but if there is margin to be eroded and these other providers roll out more broadly the prices will end up coming down.
One other thing I found interesting here and you and others might as well... I couldn't help but give feedback about my happiness with the service overall, but my reluctance at the current pricing and I specifically said I don't need to receive a reply to my request (Waymo asks if you want someone to reply when you give feedback and I said "no"). But sure enough they replied and the gist of it was we're sorry we're not a good fit for you now because of the price and hope you'll give us another chance down the road.
I'm not sure what I expected them to say, but at this still-early hour I would've expected more nuance in reply. Would've been better for them to not reply at all given the tone of the reply they sent.