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One important consideration: displacing the number of people who drive for a living in a community will be politically difficult. Ever notice how the vegas mon
by yajoe 13y ago
One important consideration: displacing the number of people who drive for a living in a community will be politically difficult. Ever notice how the vegas monorail stops short of the airport? We'll have to suffer a couple generations of protections before the long-run utopia I read in your comment.
Perhaps innovators will offset the protections by having +2 passenger seats in a standard sedan? Or a new car design altogether to side-step arbitrary rules?
- elchief 13y agoAgreed, though no one really cares (politically) about taxi and limo drivers. Truck driver and bus driver unions will certainly have something to say.
- jerf 13y agoThey will be up against enormous headwinds, though. Unions have power, but it's not infinite, and society's willing to tolerate the unions is going to balanced against the cost of the tolerance... and in this case, after the self-driving cars are about 5 to 10 years in and the cost of making a self-driving car is minimal compared to leaving the hardware out, the price pressure on the unions is probably going to just steamroll them. If you have trouble with that idea, look at the history of the UAW. Unions are not infinitely powerful, and the further above "market price" they're trying to price their services, the worse off their position becomes.
- greghinch 13y agoAsk Uber and the similar services currently embroiled in legal battles in NYC and LA how "no one" cares about taxis politically. Changing incumbents isn't so simple
- nickik 13y agoI work in a start up that has to do with taxi and limo in germany. The limo market is not very political, the taxi market is. Its one of the most distortet markets I have seen. In Berlin you have a state set taxi price.
- ErikAugust 13y agoUnions make headway because human labor is a component that is needed in the completion of the product/service. Once they are replaced by cost-effective automation, there is little to no leverage they have.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoWe have to stop predicating people's livelihoods on work. Because, most work is going to be automated away, and the only choice we as a society have is: does that mean we all retire, or does that mean we're all sacked? The status quo path leads to chaos.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]