cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18626085
I just don’t see any gains from self driving cars. We already have ride share services that would allow what you’re talking about to happen but people don’t do it cause it’s expensive. I doubt companies like Uber and Lyft are gonna lower their prices when self driving cars become a thing, they’re just gonna take the extra profit for themselves. All it’s gonna do is encourage more people to drive cause now one of the benefits of public transit, not having to actively drive and being able to do other things while traveling, will now be a benefit of self driving cars too. And on top of that it’s gonna encourage more of the bad practices from the software industry to leak over into cars such as subscriptions services which companies have already been trying to push. Overall I don’t see self driving cars being a benefit for society other than making driving more convenient and pushing even more towards dangerous car focused infrastructure.
just don’t see any gains from self driving cars. We already have ride share services that would allow what you’re talking about to happen but people don’t do it cause it’s expensive.
Because it will be cheaper.
I doubt companies like Uber and Lyft are gonna lower their prices when self driving cars become a thing, they’re just gonna take the extra profit for themselves
That’s not how capitalism works as much as this website disagrees. Uber is already a good example of a company that undercut the competition.
Higher density in vehicles alone will make a huge difference.
Except that is how capitalism works time and time again. Companies will lower prices to gain market share then once they have a large control of the market will happily raise prices and keep any gains in productivity for themselves. The only reason Uber is trying to undercut people right now is because the industry is new and they want to try and capture the market for themselves. Once they do or some situation forms like what we have with internet with Comcast and other providers avoiding competing you can expect prices to not ever be lowered again. If anything this is another reason why I favor public transit over self driving cars because public transit investment is owned by the government and therefore the people, it’s not gonna try and milk people for profit. Whereas these ride share companies already have shown they’re willing to act shitty towards their drivers to drive up their own profits, I imagine these companies would continue to find ways to milk more profit out of the service with self driving cars and with drivers being gone that’s gonna come at the expense of the users.
Then competition comes in.
Explain to me how public transport is going to suddenly become this thing that will replace cars when it has had 100 years to achieve that and hasn’t?
