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* You don't need to pay drivers * You don't need an army of marketers/hr/legal/support staff for your drivers * You don't need to dodge ambiguous contractor v

* You don't need to pay drivers * You don't need an army of marketers/hr/legal/support staff for your drivers * You don't need to dodge ambiguous contractor vs. employee laws * You don't have any risk about individual drivers being bad actors or acting fraudulently * You can predict, with great accuracy, how many cars will be available at any given time, whether or not they'll want to do another drive after (they will), and where they want to end up * Your cars meet a minimum level of safety (if it works) that humans can't guarantee, especially in regards to distracted, tired, drunk, or whatever driving Given how much effort is spent on attracting and retaining drivers, I'd say Waymo has many competitive advantages lined up. If it works.

kevincox 6y ago
There is also a direct benefit from riders who don't want to interact with a driver. Or want to have conversations that they would be uncomfortable subjecting a driver to. I mean sure, there is a camera. But that is hugely different than a person (both positive and negative)
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I wonder if that'll play poorly in the business crowd. Talking in hushed tones is bad but passable when there's a human driver. It's terrible when it's a recording device.
  - kevincox 6y ago
    It's funny. For fun personal things I don't want to annoy the driver, but don't really care if what I say is recorded. For business you don't really care if the driver hears it, but don't want to get recorded. I suspect that a well-defined retention and usage policy could satisfy most business. In fact they might prefer it to having a driver listening in.
asdff 6y ago
How long until these too are abused like shared scooters and bikes? You order one after a night out and the previous tenant discretely left their partially digested dinner all over the seat and floor. What then? In many ways, an uber driver is also a custodian.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I'm sure there's potential for fraud but they're going to have the account info and billing info of people who rented the car time. If someone damages or dirties the car, they're going to be liable and probably kicked off the platform. All the car needs is a camera and a way for riders to complain about past transgressions that are leftover in the car and it'll probably sort itself out. You could also pay people to manually remote into car cameras for a brief quality check after every ride. Wouldn't be that expensive. An interesting problem to solve though.

kevincox 6y ago

There is also a direct benefit from riders who don't want to interact with a driver. Or want to have conversations that they would be uncomfortable subjecting a driver to. I mean sure, there is a camera. But that is hugely different than a person (both positive and negative)

klmadfejno 6y ago
I wonder if that'll play poorly in the business crowd. Talking in hushed tones is bad but passable when there's a human driver. It's terrible when it's a recording device.
- kevincox 6y ago
  It's funny. For fun personal things I don't want to annoy the driver, but don't really care if what I say is recorded. For business you don't really care if the driver hears it, but don't want to get recorded. I suspect that a well-defined retention and usage policy could satisfy most business. In fact they might prefer it to having a driver listening in.

asdff 6y ago

How long until these too are abused like shared scooters and bikes? You order one after a night out and the previous tenant discretely left their partially digested dinner all over the seat and floor. What then? In many ways, an uber driver is also a custodian.

klmadfejno 6y ago
I'm sure there's potential for fraud but they're going to have the account info and billing info of people who rented the car time. If someone damages or dirties the car, they're going to be liable and probably kicked off the platform. All the car needs is a camera and a way for riders to complain about past transgressions that are leftover in the car and it'll probably sort itself out. You could also pay people to manually remote into car cameras for a brief quality check after every ride. Wouldn't be that expensive. An interesting problem to solve though.