There's a risk/reward trade-off to be made. Waymo had a huge head start, a ton of advantages, and more cash to burn. So they chose one operating point, under t

There's a risk/reward trade-off to be made. Waymo had a huge head start, a ton of advantages, and more cash to burn. So they chose one operating point, under the theory that public perception and trust were vital to get right. Later entrants chose a different operating point, because they had to catch up and had more limitations. This is why Tesla rolled out autopilot before it was ready and killed a bunch of people; getting data collection running at scale was the only way for them to compete. Keep in mind that Musk promised a million robotaxis within a year of their roll out. That didn't happen.