11 ms·
Waymo Premier
- sigmonsays 4mo agoSince when is talking to someone such a horrible thing for a human being to do
- dabinat 4mo agoThis caught my eye: > I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to I’m wondering what we lose as a society if people never have to be in even a mildly uncomfortable situation. There’s a book called The Comfort Crisis about this topic. EDIT: The full quote is “I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to.” In her quote she chose to separate safety and having a conversation with a stranger as two separate issues.
- junon 4mo agoAs a gay dude I experienced my fair share of "uncomfortable" Uber rides from or to various places. No thanks. I don't need to stimulate those kinds of social skills or whatever. Can't even imagine what women go through.
- klmarks 4mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> the human supervisors in the Philippines watch you through the Waymo cameras and talk about you Literally don't care. What I don't need is to be evangelised with whatever conspiracy theory or fringe religion my driver just joined the entire way back from JFK.
- dml2135 4mo agoAre you kidding me? That's like my favorite part about landing at JFK. How else am I supposed to keep up with the latest crypto developments?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoIn case you’re being serious, sometimes it’s fun. Most of the time, I don’t care. But the reliability advantage of Waymo is usually something I’m willing to pay a bit extra, and wait a bit longer, for.
- dml2135 4mo agoHaha I was obviously being a bit tongue-in-cheek, and it’s not true every time, but yes I do generally appreciate the wacky convos with cabbies when I land, it feels like a warm welcome home. Your comment resonated with me because this doesn’t really happen when just taking ubers around town. I don’t really know what’s special about the drive from JFK — maybe the length? or the drivers being used to picking up tourists, who are more chatty? — that brings out the hustle chat and conspiracy theories, but I guess it’s a thing!
- MBlume 4mo agoYes, and? What is your threat model here?
- daheza 4mo agoSome regulation that limited the operators to work in the city they supervise would be an easy job win for some politicians. Create some jobs and look like you’re standing up to big tech.
- junon 4mo agoI don't care what people think about me. I care about the guy who has Jesus hung in every nook and cranny with a candle lit in his front cupholder telling me that I need to repent. In San Francisco, I might add. I couldn't care less what people in the Philippines - one of the most gay-friendly countries in Asia - think of me through a camera stream.
- init2null 4mo agoGay here, but I've only experienced a concerning conversation once, and that was a longer trip where sometimes you find out too much. I took an exit ramp away from that topic of conversation and it was fine. Otherwise everyone has been decent to downright pleasant. I'd feel like I'm losing something by giving up that human interaction, such that it is.
- saberience 4mo ago[flagged]
- miltonlost 4mo agoSome people do, and those people are homophobic Uber drivers
- wewtyflakes 4mo agoThat would be lovely; I want to live in the world you think we live in.
- junon 4mo agoUber drivers often do. Hence my comment.
- ihsw 4mo ago[dead]
- lern_too_spel 4mo agoThere are uncomfortable situations that you can walk away from like a checkout counter, and then there are uncomfortable situations where you are in a car in an unfamiliar location driven by the person making you uncomfortable.
- fartcoin67 4mo ago[dead]
- pirate787 4mo agoThis is the real issue: "Uber received over 400,000 sexual assault and misconduct reports between 2017 and 2022" https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/uber-liable-pay-8-5-million-driver-rape-suit.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/uber-liable-pay-8-5-million-...
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoThat averages out at 220 reports a day, which kind of sounds like a lot to me.
- llbbdd 4mo agoI'm a man, and I've been using Uber since it launched. Most rides are fine, but there are enough weirdos on the platform that 220 incidents per day that are serious enough to report seems reasonable to me, even if you don't consider that they operate internationally. I once had a driver pick me up in downtown Seattle, and it turned out to be that he was driving for Uber as a tactic for his entrepreneurial venture developing antimicrobial and hydrophobic coating. He claimed to have applied it to the fishing boat from Deadliest Catch. He was specifically circling downtown to try to pick up someone who could get the ear of someone in Amazon's grocery division that he could pitch to (which I was not). At a red light in a nightmarish seven-way intersection, he took out a square of cheesecloth that had apparently had the coating applied, and attempted to demonstrate its effectiveness by pouring water onto it. It worked, and the water got all over his passenger seat and center console instead while the light turned green and cars behind us honked. A few months later, Uber tried to match me with that same driver, and I cancelled it and walked instead. I have to imagine that if a guy with that level of high-preparation social ineptitude can stick around in their system, that the number of people making offhand inappropriate moves or remarks must be reasonably high.
- Loocid 4mo agoKeep in mind that Uber does like 30 million rides per day.
- spike021 4mo agoOne time I hopped in an Uber and got a missionary-like lecture on Islam and an invite to go to a mosque. More typical of Christians so it kind of threw me off. But anyway, a paid service shouldn't be starting that kind of conversation unless for some reason I started it and even then that'd make it just as uncomfortable for the driver.
- rafram 4mo agoI think "people should just deal with uncomfortable situations" (while in a vehicle that they have no control over!) is not a winning argument, but the continuing march toward tech-enabled isolation is absolutely bad. It can be annoying to have to deal with irrational humans who make mistakes, but that really is just part of life! I'll take some cumbersome conversations over conducting my entire life via corporate app interfaces.
- klmarks 4mo ago[flagged]
- cflewis 4mo agoThis is a male perspective. My wife will not ride alone in Uber's because she's had one too many uncomfortable -> possibly dangerous situations. This appears to be true for all of her friends as well.
- saberience 4mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- wewtyflakes 4mo agoThey presumably know their wife better than you do, internet stranger. They did not hide that they were talking from their experience, and not from a published paper on Uber statistics.
- junon 4mo ago> hilarious I worked for Uber about a decade ago. I was aware of the stories as they'd circulate internally. It's fine, until it isn't. Calling it hilarious is a lack of imagination or critical thinking at best.
- nutjob2 4mo agoI don't know, what am I gaining from listening to the 100th anti immigrant/POC/trans/gay/poor-person rant? For some reason people feel comfortable telling me this sort of shit. Maybe I look like a bigot. Interacting with the general public absolutely sucks.
- paulsutter 4mo agoWhat I want is a way to rent a car for an hour or two, so that I can leave shopping items or child seats in the car while making stops around town.
- jimkleiber 4mo agoLike Waymo meets Zipcar?
- kotaKat 4mo agoThat actually sorta? exists! Vay uses remotely teleoperated vehicles in Vegas to drop off your rental, then take it away once you're done. https://vay.io/ https://vay.io/
- arjie 4mo agoYou're kidding. This cannot be real. I can't wait to try it, if it is somehow real.
- airstrike 4mo agoThis is the best combo possible. It feels like the ideal trade-off between the autonomy of car ownership and the flexibility of ride-sharing. I've been hearing about this concept for literally over a decade now. I hope it expands quickly to the rest of the US.
- mmoustafa 4mo agoI think you're looking at $60 an hour which is not horrible (estimating Waymo avg is 3 rides / hour x $20 per ride)
- keane 4mo agoI assume you mean a self-driving vehicle but if not: https://www.zipcar.com/cities https://www.zipcar.com/cities
- gorfian_robot 4mo ago
- swyx 4mo ago> Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. > Waymo Premier is a new invite-only membership program built for those who rely on us most. For a monthly fee, members gain access to a suite of exclusive benefits designed to make their journey more seamless and rewarding: Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching Ride Savings: Earn 10% Waymo Cash back on every trip, and even more during busy times. Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand. Flexible Cancellations: Peace of mind with up to five free cancellations per month. --- ok so just amazon prime for waymo. its alright but i feel like they had the chance to go REALLY high end with like a $300/month plan that people will still pay for because supply is so limited. instead they went mass consumer with a name like "Premier". eh. (sorry waymo person reading this i know what its like to name a thing and regret it)
- Almondsetat 4mo ago>Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand How is this useful in any way? by definition it's a subscription for people already using the service in the (few) supported cities. If I use it in Denver, why would I care to have early access in Washington?
- xnx 4mo agoA lot of people (myself included) would pay $30 to get Waymo a month earlier in their home city.
- pavon 4mo agoIf you travel a lot for work and would prefer to use Waymo over Uber or renting.
- rafram 4mo agoI imagine they'll try to get new users to sign up for a month of Premier to try Waymo early once it becomes available in their city. Basically juice a few thousand early adopters for 30 bucks each, which also lets them judge demand and gives them some extra revenue to build out their vehicle/parking network before the full launch.
- toddmorey 4mo agoI'm SO tired of subscription services that only offer the opportunity to buy more stuff. - Doordash wants you to subscribe - AMC movies want you to subscribe - Now Waymo wants you to subscribe You can't buy anything now without being hassled for a subscription. I don't see any value here except for when they degrade the service for non-subscribers to make the priority pickups seem worth it.
- nicebyte 4mo agoIf done right, this is more like a monthly bus pass
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoWhy not just get a monthly bus pass?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> Why not just get a monthly bus pass? It's less convenient, doesn't work nationally and isn't as fun?
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoIf you're planning on taking a Waymo across country, it's going to cost more than 400 dollars.
- s1artibartfast 4mo agoSame thing if you want to take a SF Muni bus to New York City. You're probably looking at buying one outright and hiring a driver
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> If you're planning on taking a Waymo across country Nationally != cross country. A Waymo account would be useful to me in the Bay Area, LA, Phoenix and Miami. A bus pass is only useful in one place.
- ihsw 4mo ago[dead]
- smy20011 4mo agoIt will pay for itself if you spend >300$ per month. I personally wish Waymo have a 399$ per month subscription that give 2 free ride per day so I don't need to own a car just for work.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoThat sounds more expensive than just owning a car.
- joshgachnang 4mo agoCar payment, insurance, parking, gas/electricity? Going to be over $400/mo in almost all cases in any of the cities Waymo is in.
- libria 4mo agoAdd tag tax, residential parking, subsidized work parking, maintenance, incurred violations, tolls. 400/mo or 5000/yr for not having to worry about all that plus never playing the "wait let's circle the block, maybe a spot has opened up" game... sounds tempting.
- tjohns 4mo ago"Incurred violations" should be effectively $0. How often are you getting a traffic ticket? I think the last time I got a ticket was a decade ago...
- ihaveajob 4mo agoSpread across a city probably more than you think, especially if you include parking tickets. I've never had a driving ticket, and maybe 4 parking ones over decades, but I'm probably on the lower end of the curve. In their first 40 days of operation, Oakland's speed cameras issued 82,000 tickets according to reports. I welcome those as they make streets safer, and I think they should be low cost, but high frequency.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- aduffy 4mo ago> “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to." I recognize that this is a luxury product but I kind of laughed out loud at this testimonial. The amount of privilege you need to have to grow up and live in *Arizona* without ever learning how to drive is insane.
- ativzzz 4mo agoAlternatively, consider the person is disabled and is physically incapable of driving.
- standardUser 4mo agoI appreciate this comment immensely - too many people seem to mindlessly assume that every other person shares their own situations, and it could not be less true.
- saberience 4mo agoYes, but realistically, it's not that likely.
- spiralcoaster 4mo agoSo what you're saying is this hypothetically disabled person who is physically incapable of driving chose NOT to mention that, but instead chose to provide "I never got my drivers license" as their reason? And you're asking someone to consider this because I presume you think this is a likely enough scenario to consider?
- standardUser 4mo agoYes, someone is asking you to consider the personal situation of the stranger you are critizing. My deepest condolences for your inconvenience.
- gorfian_robot 4mo ago
- CaliforniaKarl 4mo agoI wonder how the subscription would respond to a person's area being blocked off. There construction happening a block down the road from me. As part of the work, the rightmost lane is often blocked during the day (in between rush hours), so that things like concrete pumping can take place. The lane block starts just before where I live. Around the same time, I noticed that when I would try to take Waymo (which I used to get to PT), I'd be told that things are busy and rides are paused. Recently, I've noticed that if I'm at work (or the PT place) and I want to take a Waymo back home, I'm told "Can't get to that spot right now". If I had Waymo Premier, I wonder how hard it would be to get a refund on my subscription. The above talks about a complete block (or, a complete-enough block) to using the service, but what about a major impediment? For example, let's say I travel regularly, and use Waymo to get to/from San Jose airport. Waymo's been disabling highway routes, which for me equates to 20-minute (or more) travel-time increase from home to airport. Would that be enough to qualify for a refund on the subscription?
- nemomarx 4mo agoIs 20 minutes of extra time a major impediment? I don't think I would get a refund on an Uber if they were a little late to pick me up and drove slowly so I lost 20 minutes in total. Although if that does happen maybe I'm just naive about refunds
- 98codes 4mo agoIt's a pain if that isn't communicated in the app prior to committing to payment.
- CaliforniaKarl 4mo agoI said “20 minutes (or more)”. The 20-minute case is for a pickup at 5 AM. If I travel to the airport later in the morning, the time difference is worse. And although 20 minutes doesn’t seem much, the variability of airline baggage check and TSA means 20 minutes doesn’t seem an lead to increased stress.
- Melatonic 4mo agoCan't you just walk a block away from the construction ? Seems like a niche case
- philip1209 4mo agoCash back is huge for people expensing rides. “Spend company money on us, and take your personal rides every once in a while for free.” Same model as airlines.
- falcor84 4mo agoAnd hotels.com
- throwaway2037 4mo agoI see this constantly in my industry. Mid-level managers (and above) are always trying to max travel miles on company expense. If I ran my own company (dream!), I would never allow employees to reap "travel miles" from travel paid for by the company. It is ridiculous.
- ok_dad 4mo agoThe company isn’t using the travel miles. You’re basically saying, “I’ll take away a small perk from people who are forced to travel.” It’s not like they’re stealing from the company, the company sent them somewhere else and they just got a tiny bonus for it. The proper thing to so is stop those managers who travel too much.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- siren2026 4mo agoThe issue is that it creates an incentive to maximize the cost of travel as the employee directly get miles based on the price. I see this all the time with employees/managers booking a 1000$ flight that will give them 10k miles instead of a perfectly fine 400$ flight that would only give them 4k miles.
- eightysixfour 4mo agoEvery travel system I have worked with at [big corps] required the cost of my flight to be within a specific range of the average for that route. I wouldn’t have been able to take a $1k if a $400 was available without an override by the person whose budget it was coming from. Most of them we couldn’t pay on our own card either, so no points from that, but I’m not aware of any way to block someone from adding their frequent flyer number to a booked ticket.
- yodon 4mo agoI'd be more interested in a $29/month surcharge if Waymo weren't already significantly more expensive than Uber/Lyft to begin with.
- readams 4mo agoWhen you consider the required tipping, the cost is quite close. And the Waymo is nicer.
- leptons 4mo agoI don't know if it's "nicer". I've had some great conversations with Uber/Lyft drivers. Hilarious fun conversations. Not all of them, but enough to make me question if a riding in a clanker car is actually "nicer". I guess if someone is socially awkward, it might be nicer for them.
- silverquiet 4mo ago> Waymo is nicer Just wait till Google spins it off to private equity; it'll be barley running bits of vehicles patched together by the cheapest mechanics they can find. Enjoy it while you can; I'd love to give it a go myself, but even though I live in a city where they are supposedly in commercial operation, I can't get one to either of the two houses on either side of town that I currently split my time between. I have a buddy who lives a few blocks from one of their zones who walked over just so he could try it out. As of now, our sub-standard, minimally-invested-in-this-century bus system is actually much better suited to my needs.
- bitpush 4mo agoTextbook strawman. Build up an alternate fact, and then attack it mercilessly. > A straw man argument is a common logical fallacy where someone distorts or exaggerates an opposing position to make it easier to attack. Instead of addressing the actual point, they refute a weaker, fabricated version of the argument (the "straw man") to create the illusion of having won the debate. There's nothing AFAICT that says Google is considering any such thing.
- 4mo ago
- TuringNYC 4mo agoSo jealous we dont have this in the Northeast. Hurry up!
- Falimonda 4mo agoI saw a Waymo with safety driver driving around Boston a few weeks back. The concerning thing was just how much it backed up traffic getting off the freeway because they're not allowed to go any faster than the posted speed limit.
- Analemma_ 4mo ago"Car obeys the speed limit, drivers lucid with rage" definitely sounds like my memories of Boston.
- Falimonda 4mo agoGoing with the flow of traffic is important! Don't pretend you always drive exactly at or below the limit.
- sebzim4500 4mo agoPresumably Tesla will not make this decision, it will be interesting to see how much consumers value faster ride times if Tesla FSD ever get their shit together
- thebigman433 4mo agoI think the important thing here is that driving faster hardly makes your trip shorter, especially for trips within a city. You're likely talking about a <1-2 minute difference even if the Tesla is driving recklessly.
- sebzim4500 4mo agoYeah but that's not nothing, and passengers will be annoyed by seeing cars overtake them
- bkruse 4mo agoI used Waymo about 10 times in Austin - it was great. I wish they'd accelerate the rollout to other cities. I wonder what the major technical hurdles are for launching in a new city?
- unglaublich 4mo agoMapping, legislation and licensing, marketing, existing taxi lobbies, consumer trust...
- Pseudocrat 4mo agoWell, recently in Austin Waymo cars blocked emergency services during a mass shooting event. That may be causing other cities some caution.
- DonsDiscountGas 4mo agoAmerica in a nutshell. We won't do anything about mass shooting events besides hold up deployment of a life saving technology.
- dminvs 4mo agothere have been a lot more issues than just that incident they apparently like driving into floodwaters [1] one vehicle got confused by construction barriers, entered opposing traffic, and halted [2] in Dallas, a gas leak caused an explosion that leveled an apartment building, a Waymo unit blocked the scene, and first responders had to first reach into the car and try grasping the wheel, before the remote support agent agreed to kill the car and put it in neutral so they could push it out of their way [3] I have a moderate fear for the safety of my children with these things on the road [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgplyxxl75o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgplyxxl75o [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1tzszpx/waymo_stuck_on_the_wrong_lane_on_congress/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1tzszpx/waymo_stuck... [3] https://www.keranews.org/news/2026-06-04/oak-cliff-apartment-explosion-first-responder-was-blocked-by-a-waymo-self-driving-car-video-shows https://www.keranews.org/news/2026-06-04/oak-cliff-apartment...
- boarsofcanada 4mo ago$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this. I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.
- laweijfmvo 4mo agoA Waymo ride once quoted me close to $100 for a couple miles. The same Uber ride ended up being like $21. Surge pricing is real but c’mon.
- solenoid0937 4mo agoI would gladly pay this much for Waymo, Waymos are so much nicer than taxis and public transit.
- CobrastanJorji 4mo agoYeah, but imagine you live in Phoenix, AZ, and you can't/won't drive for whatever reason, you've got to get to work every day. Phoenix has buses, but they're not going to be convenient for lots of possible daily commutes. Daily taxi/Uber/Waymo rides are probably a pretty good choice. Or imagine that you work a professional travel job and you're flying to/from the airport on a weekly basis. Your employer will pay for your ride to the airport, so why would you take public transit? Now you're doing at least 3-4 taxi/uber/waymo rides a week.
- cheeze 4mo agoOr LA
- hamdingers 4mo agoI have a job where I fly frequently, my employer pays my way to/from the airport, and I take transit whenever possible because uber/lyft/taxi services seem to select horrible drivers. I'd certainly consider a Waymo if I was flying to an airport they serviced though.
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- baggachipz 4mo agoThus the enshittification begins. Charge a fee for "premium" features -> features degrade over time -> drop features for non-subscribers -> subscription required for access at all, plus you get to pay the fee to go somewhere.
- bitpush 4mo agoI dont think you're using the term correctly. Charging money for product/service is not enshittification. If you insist on that, you're living in fantasy land. How did you go from "charge a fee for premium features" -> features degrade over time? Apple has been charging a ton of money for their products and AFAICT their products have been pretty good
- baggachipz 4mo agoYou're right, I skipped a step/was unclear. Features will degrade over time for _non-subscribers_. They'll eventually wall it off so that you have to have a subscription. Then they'll start degrading the features for everyone (who has to be subscribed). Then they'll have a new tier and the process begins anew. Start with a subsidized product and delight users -> step 1. Prioritize the business by charging extra -> step 2. Degrade what people get for their price and extract revenue at the expense of the users -> step 3. Classic enshittification.
- bitpush 4mo ago> Features will degrade over time for _non-subscribers_. I mean, duh? It isnt a gotcha. Do you expend resources in your life maintaining relationships / friendships with people that dont matter to you? Are you in touch with your high school best friend? Poeple prioritize their limited resources, similarly companies prioritize their customers. Your high school friend shouldnt say "baggazhipz has enshittified their relationship with me".
- xyst 4mo agoPremier? How outdated. Should have named it "Waymo Supreme" for that extra generational cringe. What’s up with the fake review? > I get privacy, time back, … Yea you get "privacy" in a car kitted with the most advanced 360 degree camera system in the interior and exterior of the vehicle. Waymo PR team unhinged
- SauntSolaire 4mo agoFor a lot of people, privacy can simply mean not having to share a space with someone else.
- gorfian_robot 4mo agoWaymo Supreme comes with cheese
- SirMaster 4mo agoWhy does EVERYTHING needs to be a subscription?...
- parl_match 4mo agoWaymo will never be a serious option until they fix the insane surge pricing. And yes, they're working on it. > “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to. Adding cash back and priority pickups on top of that makes Premier a no-brainer for someone like me." I get what they're trying to say, but their pitch boils down to: "use waymo if youre too stupid to get a DL and too antisocial to talk to people". Bit rough. They really could have done a lot better with this PR piece lol.
- lotsofpulp 4mo ago> use waymo if youre too stupid to get a DL and too antisocial to talk to people". -or- use Waymo if you don’t want to spend resources on owning and maintaining a car, and if you are part of the population that has or may feel too intimidated or unsafe to navigate a potentially adversarial conversation with someone more powerful than you, such as women.
- parl_match 4mo agosure, and im saying they could have done a much better job communicating that
- throwaway23597 4mo agoHmm, so for $30 a month you basically get 10% cash back. There's some break even point here if you use Waymo enough. I think in SF, this would make a lot of sense, especially since there are so many Waymos up there to begin with. In South Bay though, if you don't have a car you're pretty much cooked.
- wxw 4mo agoI’m dying to take a Waymo. Glad to see them trying to build sustainable revenue models. I hate the state of the car-dependent American urban fabric and would love to see public transport everywhere (trains > AVs). But Waymo/AVs can meet people where they are (personal vehicles) and deliver a halfway decent solution (distributed, on demand, cheap transport without human labor).
- aaroninsf 4mo agoThe K-shaped economy kontinues.
- bitpush 4mo agoElaborate? What are the two charts in this example?
- jacobgold 4mo agoIf Waymo Premier includes an [EVASIVE MANEUVERS] button on the infotainment screen I'm in. I had a Uber driver block my Waymo at an intersection in SF some months ago just to be an asshole. Apparently some other people have been attacked and robbed while in a Waymo. Waymo should treat it like a security flaw that anyone can stop your car and there's nothing you can do about it.
- wahnfrieden 4mo agoWhen under attack, Waymo responds by stopping the car.
- saghm 4mo agoAs always, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1958/ https://xkcd.com/1958/
- spprashant 4mo agoWe do have people with real incentive to not allow self-driving cars to succeed.
- saghm 4mo agoAt the cost of a traffic violation though?
- sterlind 4mo agoI hope they succeed, for the sake of my mom who's legally blind and has dreamed about them for decades. but I'd be significantly more excited about self-driving if you could buy level-4 AVs that you can actually own.
- cogogo 4mo agoMe too but this feels like a step in a progression to being able to rent/share them.
- paulryanrogers 4mo ago
- saghm 4mo ago> Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching > Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand. > Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. It sounds like when Waymo expands to a new city for the first time, the new potential customers would have a worse experience if there were a high enough volume of riders from other cities who participate in this program? I guess the assumption is that there won't be enough people subscribing who are traveling in other cities at a given time, but I'd also imagine that rolling out to a new city would start with smaller numbers of cars and scaling up, and it seems a bit odd to potentially set things up in a way that might result in people considering trying it but then seeing long wait times and deciding it's not worth it.
- spiznnx 4mo agoWhen Waymo launches in a new city, they have a waitlist of ~months before you can request your first ride. It's not that a new user would see a long wait time to get a ride, it's that they would not be invited to try waymo for another month.
- Julesman 4mo agoZero value. I don't get it. Priority Pickups: The only ostensible value. I've never waited more than 5 minutes for a car. $360 a year to save a couple minute? Ride Savings: Pay to save money. Early Access: Zero value. Flexible Cancellations: Pay to save money.
- gs17 4mo ago> I've never waited more than 5 minutes for a car. $360 a year to save a couple minute? Depends on which city you're in. When I visited Nashville, it was a 15-20 minute wait to be assigned a Waymo in what had to be off-peak hours (at least, I'm presuming a lot of the market is getting drunk people from Broadway to somewhere else). If it made it go to 5 minutes wait and I still lived there, that might be something I could write off if I used it every day.
- Havoc 4mo agoIntroducing more tiers is a key step in enshitification process because it enables neat sleight of hand tricks. You're not making the old tier slower, you're just giving the new tier priority....which has the effect of...yes
- borg16 4mo agoOne of two ways - subscriptions or ads. Waymo chose the former.
- iLoveOncall 4mo agoThat's a ridiculous statement when talking about a paid service.
- borg16 4mo agowhy would you say so?
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- the_sleaze_ 4mo agoThe dream of course is to replace singleton personal vehicle ownership, and to just rent a car as you need it. If it slick enough (not too much friction) I'd be willing to sign up
- jgilias 4mo ago“You’ll own nothing and be happy” Thanks, but no thanks!
- satvikpendem 4mo agoI'm not sure how this is a dream, more like a nightmare where you own nothing.
- joshu 4mo agoi had a bunch of good rides and then one highly baffling route where it got off the road it was on to a parallel road, only to get back in the same road a few blocks later. this is literally within a few hundred feet of Waymo HQ so i don’t understand how this could go unnoticed. i haven’t used it since. the 25 minute pickup times don’t help. edit: i just checked the route. 27 minutes for pickup and it diverts 20 minutes out of the way. wtf?
- CaliforniaKarl 4mo agoAre you talking about El Camino Real? There are two areas of construction happening: One at Page Mill and one in the San Antonio area. Most of the lane-blocks are happening only between rush hours, so it's easy to miss, but I'm guessing that it's someone at Waymo has put full-time blocks in those areas.
- joshu 4mo agocamino and san antonio is exactly the problem. my house and office are both off san antonio so it sends me 29 minutes out of the way.
- cflewis 4mo agoI think having highways turned off has really hurt pickup times and availability in South Bay right now. It pays to always book as far ahead in advance as you can. There are places with construction where Waymo just seems to turn off the road and makes the car go around. But then taking away freeway access has made it more likely for vehicles to have to navigate these.
- small_model 4mo agoDoes Waymo make a profit yet? This looks like them giving up on being the main robotaxi choice, Teslas will win on scale and cost per mile so they are going for the premium market. Not sure thats big enough to turn into profit.
- kevincox 4mo agoTeslas also can't drive themselves so I doubt Waymo is worried much about them.
- ShrootBuck 4mo agodude the waymos in phoenix are dumb asf sometimes, fsd is much smarter situationally
- small_model 4mo agoCant they, tell that to the ones in Austin, Dallas and Houston that are currently taxis people around
- jeffbee 4mo agoThe term "Lyft Pink" does not seem to occur in this thread yet, so I will simply point out that a car service with a recurring subscription cost is not unprecedented.
- CaliforniaKarl 4mo agoOr Zipcar
- jeffbee 4mo agoThat system has been walking into the grave for a long time. I am surprised every time I see one.
- CaliforniaKarl 4mo agoI'm curious, when's the last time you've checked the parking garages of your nearby university campus?
- jeffbee 4mo agoThat's the only place I see them, in Berkeley, but they've been walking out of major markets like the UK and they packed up their global headquarters and moved into the basement of their parent company, so it can't be that great of a business. Two other local car shares, City Car Share and AAA Gig, went out of business here.
- iririririr 4mo agowaymo slogan is pretty much "pay to be our a/b test crash test dummie" and people do pay! mind bogling.
- faitswulff 4mo agoWaymo Premier soon to be followed by Waymo Mythos and finally Waymo: Tokyo Drift
- trhway 4mo agoWhich will quietly drive you in circles and ultimately to a completely different location if your target location is associated with some things like security/autonomous/etc.
- dandaka 4mo agoHow fast is it going to expand to other markets? Asking for a friend obviously
- johnnyApplePRNG 4mo agoThat first image there ... that does NOT strike me like the futuristic view I think their marketers thought it might. It looks like two ugly regular cars covered in ad-hoc cameras and sensors like they're overengineering for something they don't truly understand.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- CSMastermind 4mo agoTheir coverage area in Orlando is so limited I functionally can't use the service. Would be nice if they could expand it to at least include the airport and tourist areas.
- gorfian_robot 4mo agoI think all of their metro areas are like this. I'm sure they did some math on the duty cycle of the cars to help draw the boundaries.
- HDBaseT 4mo agoFrom the article; "Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to. Adding cash back and priority pickups on top of that makes Premier a no-brainer for someone like me." How does one "get privacy" via a Google spyware car exactly?
- crazygringo 4mo agoI'm pretty sure you can figure out the intended meaning, rather than the one you're trying to twist it into.
- scoofy 4mo agoIf you’re wondering what a “K-shaped economy” looks like, this is exactly it. A moderately expensive subscription service that simply provides priority access to something you’re otherwise already paying good money for. “I mean’s it’s one banana, Michael. How much could it cost, ten dollars?”
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4mo agoThis is pretty close to how toll roads work tbh
- scoofy 4mo agoI think toll roads is an interesting parallel. They are public works, often in states that simply can’t afford to build or maintain their own infrastructure. But the point remains. I’m not saying there is any wrong with the service, but I think it’s a worthwhile indicator of what life will be like as wealth inequality continues to accelerate.
- danielmarkbruce 4mo agothey aren't public works.
- TylerE 4mo agoDepends. For most of my childhood all of I95 in Virginia was a toll road.
- scoofy 4mo agoThe vast majority of modern American toll roads are. I grew up in Austin. We have the Mopac and 183 expansions, route 130 was mostly privately constructed, but is under TxDOT. Perhaps other parts of the world have privately operated roads, but I’m not aware of them.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4mo ago
- totetsu 4mo agoWhy are all these things always called, "Premier" or "elevated experiences".. Do people really build their sense of self worth/satisfaction form imagining they are special for spending money?
- noahmbarr 4mo agoThere is no question Waymo is a better consumer product for most trips around places like San Francisco proper. So if you have a better product, why waste calories with membership cash grabs vs scaling your core mechanic? If there was a larger fleet, wait times wouldn’t be long— so line skipping wouldn’t be a problem. Only conclusions I can come to: (1) Their core money mechanic (charging for rides) isn’t that attractive (2) they cannot scale fast enough, or (3) both Love to have someone steelman the argument o/w
- aetherspawn 4mo agoHm, don’t like the offering. It seems standoffish. If you want to make Waymo into a SaaS and get people really using it, then it’s easy: $100 per month - Unlimited rides $200 per month - Unlimited priority rides Build enough trust in that and people might even get rid of their cars. But in my opinion the problem is the feeling of spending money. People want to avoid that feeling at all costs, or at least want to feel like they’re getting a good deal. Everyone else is just driving around for free so it’s gonna take a lot to feel like you’re getting a good deal paying for a Waymo. People who take cabs are forced to take cabs. That market is pretty finite. What if you can tap the market of people who need to get places but would rather do other things in the back seat?
- nearbuy 4mo ago$100 per month is way, way too cheap for unlimited rides. That's about 10x cheaper than the amortized monthly cost for owning an average car, without the headache of doing maintenance. They'd be losing a ton of money on each subscriber.
- aetherspawn 4mo agoYes and most people use their car for around 2% of the time they own it. The rest of the time it’s parked up.
- nearbuy 4mo agoThat's not a reason for Waymo to give rides at a major loss. Heavy users are the ones that are going to buy the unlimited package. If you do just one average trip per day (there and back), at about $20 per ride, their regular price will cost you about $1200/month. A heavy user might use several times that. Do you think Waymo currently has 10-20x profit margins? If they're were able to drop their price by that much, they could also afford to drop their non-subscription price by 10x and take over the taxi/rideshare market.
- kingstnap 4mo agoYour pricing is ridiculously cheap. Cars are expensive. But aside from that you really can't offer unlimited usage. You would need to offer quota. Maybe something like 30 km / day that rolls over into a limit of 300 km.
- netsharc 4mo agoThis lady's op-ed comes to mind: > Why is the US so expensive? Everything comes in a ‘premium’ version, from doctors’ appointments to movies > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/24/cinema-premium-seating-price-vue-odeon-amc-sightline https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/24/cinema...
- holistio 4mo agoIt's only a matter of time until Waymo Premier Ultra Plus, as described by the premier documentary of our times, Black Mirror.
- gorfian_robot 4mo agoUltra Plus™ benefits includes Trauma Team Premium™ service in case of accident or civil unrest.
- hedora 4mo agoUnless I’m missing something the “early access” benefit is just plain evil. They’ll expand to new cities, but not allow residents of those cities to use the service. Instead, you need to be from SF or some other place they operate, and pay a monthly fee.