Posted by JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago
Waymo is the best service I've used in many, many years. The jump from Uber->Waymo is similar to the quality jump from Taxi->Uber 12 years ago, but I don't see an obvious way for Waymo to get enshittified.
So a $110B valuation is not currently that significant in terms of exposure. It's only 2.7% of it overall.
Oh ye of little faith! Here are some ideas off the top of my head, I am sure the suits at Google already have a bigger list.
* Ads in vehicle
* Adjust route so you see partner companies or billboards
* Offering alternative destinations (I see you are going to Burger King, would you rather go to our partner McDonalds?)
* Listening to conversations in car
* Selling ride data.It'll be up to you, just like whether you want your Netflix cheaper with ads, or more expensive but without.
I see that choice as a good thing.
The rest of your suggestions are incredibly unlikely. Google doesn't even scan your Gmail anymore, you think they're going to create a privacy scandal by listening to your conversations? And they certainly don't sell your Maps timeline which is far more valuable than just a few car trips, so why on earth would they do that with Waymo? Nor does Google Maps offer to send you to Burger King when you hit directions for McDonald's. And taking a longer route that wastes time, battery and money, on the chance you'll be looking out the window to see a billboard rather than looking at your phone, doesn't make sense at all.
- offer a service well below market rate, gain dependent customers
- crank up the price
No need to do much of the other stuff
* Stop doing any meaningful in-person inspection of the vehicle to ensure that it is in good condition before joining the network
* Stop requiring cars to be <= 4 years old
* (Seemingly) stop requiring drivers to maintain trunk space free for passengers' luggage
Ads in cars, partnerships with alternative destinations, etc. definitely would feel like enshitification for a demographic comparable to the hacker news one here. But these are all per session/user settings just like most of us have a paid Spotify account and never see advertising and those who don't get a very different monetized experience.
What is exciting about monetization like this is the possibility for rides to become very cheap or even free. If my dentist offers free rides to the office in return for my loyalty, I'm quite happy to take that.
That's actually a really interesting angle. The same way businesses often provide free parking now... what if they start providing free self-driving round trips?
E.g. spend $75 or more at Whole Foods, and get free round-trip up to 20 miles or something. Especially for bulky items like groceries where a car makes a big difference, I can totally see that becoming standard. Home Depot too. Plus entertainment like amusement parks, movie theaters, spas...
I buy Whole Foods French fries shipped to the store via Amazon logistics and purchase those at Amazon owned Whole Foods, at a discount via my Prime membership on my Amazon credit card which is processed on AWS infrastructure and I ride home on an Amazon owned Zoox that also runs on AWS infrastructure.
Amazon owns so much of the profit margin across that stack that they can afford to give rides away for example.
Oh, you'll agree to that when you accept the terms of service.
Can't wait for the "This ride with ads: $17. Ad free: $26" choice.
people used to feel that way about search queries, email (gmail) and IP laws (LLM training).
> What is exciting about monetization like this is the possibility for rides to become very cheap or even free. If my dentist offers free rides to the office in return for my loyalty, I'm quite happy to take that.
this won't happen. alphabet will collect on both ends.
Why not? You can consent to having your audio recorded. They can even offer a higher “private” price and a lower “ad supported” price. I write “private” because I assume the microphones will always be listening no matter which price you pay.
You could opt in to have blood or plasma taken on every ride if you so wanted I guess.
As a plasma donor you can earn $30-$70 per session for 800 ml. Let's call it $50. A session takes about 90 minutes, or 533 ml/hour, and you make $33/hour
Waymo charges $0.50 - $1.00 per mile. Let's use the high end.
To break even, your Waymo will need to consume < $33/hour, or < 33 mph. That's not bad!
If you go any faster, you won't be able to extract enough plasma in the same amount of time.
Also, cheap rides cut into stocks margins. That won’t fly by investors either. These companies are not charities. They are in the business of maximizing profits. We lost “don’t be evil” over a decade ago.
If you fly United, the in-flight entertainment has pre-roll ads.
I can't say how well that model translates to car rides.
Raise the price?
Self-driving taxis have a high floor for 'making the product worse' because the car fundamentally has to drive itself.
You also get some Starlink.
My guess is that once Waymo starts to extremely take off, law makers in various cities will start to pass laws to ban them or the number of regulations will make it impossible to run at a profit. This will almost certainly happen. It will disproportionately impact an entire segment of the population and will put them out of work.
You think the folks on City Council enjoy chauffeuring their own children around and will block a solution to it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1pdzd2f/some_m...
> The bill prohibits the use of autonomous vehicles as motor carriers of passengers or property without a human operator who (i) meets any state and federal qualifications for the operation of an autonomous vehicle; (ii) is physically present in such autonomous vehicle; and (iii) has the ability to monitor the performance of such vehicle and intervene in the operation of such vehicle, including operating such vehicle without the use of the automated driving system and stopping and turning off such vehicle if necessary.
It seems that many people, after trying out the service for themselves first hand, in a locale that has it available today, are very eager to have the service available to them in their home locale.
Uber and Lyft will survive exactly to the extent they successfully adopt self-driving.
I will take whichever one is cheaper. Just like now I open up both uber and lyft to see which costs less, I'll open up waymo as well
I don't hate Uber/Lyft (though many in NYC are legitimately horrible, just like taxis)
Waymo is simply an order of magnitude better than the best Uber ride I've ever had
I think this is correct and I want to point out something that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
If and when Uber/Lyft move heavily in this direction, the cost/operational benefits of having their "fleet" of vehicles be privately owned-vehicles will almost certainly disappear.
Mamdani, the new nyc mayor, has been a long time friend and advocate for NYC taxi workers alliance. He even participated in a hunger strike with them in 2021.
Waymo is right now starting the wheels turning on getting NYC permits, but taxi workers have already made their (obvious) stance clear: No Waymos.
No they won’t. And Waymo’s playbook would be Uber’s if they did: preëmpt at the state and federal levels.
From an outside perspective, they're constantly obstructing traffic and driving in erratic and confusing ways. It's gotten to a point that if I see one ahead of me, I'll turn down the next block and change my route to avoid being behind it and dealing with whatever slowdown its about to cause.
I took one once via Uber with some coworkers and it was also jarring to ride in. I'd rather take my chances with a random human.
No IPO for us little people
Edit: there is a paywall in my country. Why downvotes? I’m just curious.
