> They aren't: you have to go and fetch the car at their shop, which is very impractical compared to having your car parked on your driveway. Precisely. Some p

> They aren't: you have to go and fetch the car at their shop, which is very impractical compared to having your car parked on your driveway. Precisely. Some people will still want to own their car, even if it's autonomous. I imagine that over time folk will become accustomed to living more like New Yorkers -- renting car time -- but it might not be a big bang. > And whenever you go from city A to city B, you need the operator to be present in both cities. Or you have a service acting as middleman. Like AirBNB, or Amazon, or Google. > Unix workstations killed by Linux on beefed-up PC in the early 00's This process has already played out in the car market. It's what Ford did to the dozens of small manufacturers who existed previously. Unix vendors had high margins that couldn't be sustained as mass-market technology caught up. Sheer manufacturing power (and let's not forget Windows here) did them in. New car manufacturers are not entering a market of Unices. They are entering a market of Intels. > cell phone makers deprecated by iPhone and Android in the late 00's This one is due to genuine product improvement, in my view. The iPhone was actually usable, it wasn't just random options stuffed any old where the engineers found a gap in the menus. But again, cars are a rather more sophisticated product. They already compete on design. There might be some more competition on usability. > I'd be surprised if GM and Ford proved smarter and more adaptable It occurs to me that I ought to have disclosed that I work for Pivotal, in which Ford recently invested a lot of money. It didn't occur to me because I don't work with any Ford teams myself, though some colleagues in the company do. What I can see is that neither Ford, nor GM, are just sitting around waiting to be replaced. The lessons of the technology industry are now widely diffused. Applying them uncritically means assuming incumbents will rest on their laurels, because that's what happened in tech. Except everyone else has gotten to observe what happened in tech. Incumbents understand the perils of laurel-resting. > When the paradigm shifts, you're better off with a clean slate than with a legacy. iOS is based on a technology that is nearly 50 years old. Android is based on a technology that's 25, inspired by the technology that is nearly 50.