Thinking about this dispelled my last bit of youthful naivete a few years ago. Won't it be great once we have fully self-driving cars? Heck, I could buy a car

Thinking about this dispelled my last bit of youthful naivete a few years ago. Won't it be great once we have fully self-driving cars? Heck, I could buy a car and then rent it out to other people like a taxi when I'm not using it, and it would pay for itself. Maybe I could even make a profit! ... If I could make more money than the car costs to purchase and maintain, without any additional work on my part, why would the company sell me the car at that price in the first place rather than just running the taxi service themselves and keeping all of that extra profit?