Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomphoolery | Hacker News Reader

> That frame says “self-driving cars.” Their business plan appears to include firing all of their drivers.

Well, yes. I believe the CEO of Uber came out and said this a year or two ago. Once self-driving cars become a reality, that's basically what Uber is going to turn into. A fleet of autonomous vehicles that take you wherever you need to go, that won't cancel on you if a better fare pops up, and that will most likely not get into too many (or any) accidents. From a technology, efficiency, and public safety perspective...this seems like a better way to go.

View on HN

At this point, any company based on road vehicles that doesn't plan on eventually firing all of its drivers is delusional or not paying the least bit of attention.

If I were a professional driver of any kind, I would be looking hard at career alternatives in the medium term.

> that won't cancel on you if a better fare pops up

Ha, good luck with that.

But then they would have to buy all of the cars.

With a 60 billion + valuation they probably could easily afford it.

I'm sure someone will make a ridesharing app for private owners of self driving cars to rent them out when they are not using them, though. The app maker would have to insure against damages, and the long term trend will be towards transportation as a service where you subscribe to a self driving car company and just get a car on demand rather than having one idle in your driveway, but some people will cling to private ownership and might use it.

Valuation not cash on hand

The longer term trend could potentially be hire-on-demand for other goods and services too.

Which will be neatly ironic - capitalism and market pricing destroying the basis of private ownership.

"the basis of private ownership" is not threatened at all. These goods are still privately owned by those who have incentive to maintain and improve them. That's efficiency. You buy and maintain the car if that's your core competency, I'll specialize elsewhere. Don't know about you, but I hate that expensive thing in my garage that sits idle all the time!

A hundred times yes!!!

The main value that uber drivers bring to the table is not the brain that connects the engine to the driving wheel, it is that they use (and maintain) their own damned cars to do this lame pretense of a part time gig.

For this reason alone, and regardless of the technical feasibility, there will never be an Uber fleet of self driving cars. It's like saying a multilevel marketing company is going to start selling real products and will no longer rely on "get rich quick" schemes to reach out to customers. Even if they tried, the whole pyramid would implode under their feet faster than what any corporation could possible implement the change.

I'm not sure why, but it seems many comments on this thread seem to have taken to the idea that because Uber would use autonomous vehicles, that means Uber would own the vehicles. Though that is a possibility, it is still also possible that you would rent out your self-driving car when you're not using it. Meaning the same business model would continue. I suggest we may see a mix of these two models.

I also thought this was already the common analysis ... the drivers are ultimately cannibalizing their own jobs.

Not really. Even if nobody signed up for Uber, there's plenty of companies investing in self-driving cars. Once there's a fully autonomous car on the market, the job of taxi driver is done for (with or without Uber).

In times of peak demand, surge pricing goes into effect to encourage the artificially-intelligent cars to get out and serve customers.

> won't cancel on you if a better fare pops up

That depends on the policy configured by whoever controls the fleet.

It's ok, self-driving cars will never become reality.

In that case you are never allowed to ride in them if you are wrong

Yeah, my current thinking is that any Uber drivers who aren't planning for this eventuality down the line deserve to be blindsided. Uber has made it very clear that this is their strategic direction.

I think it's a little callous to say they DESERVE to be blindsided. A lot of people get into driving because they don't have any other options. They probably don't have the resources and education to be dialed into what's on the forefront of technology. Have you read this article about how driverless trucks is basically going to decimate the American middle class?

https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-goin...

I'm in healthcare tech, and a lot of my low income and middle class patients across the US are truck drivers to support themselves and their families. These people often don't even have internet access or smartphones. I have no idea what these people are going to be able to do for work when this change happens. Most likely they will all apply for and go on disability as that more and more seems to be becoming the new welfare stopgap in the US.

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

Fair point, and perhaps my wording was a bit harsh. That said, drivers talk, and I would be pretty surprised if drivers weren't aware of this.

It would make for a pretty interesting survey. I wonder what would happen if drivers didn't know and suddenly found out. Guessing many would stay the course because they need the income.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com