On Dec 1, 2011 NFLX was 9.49. Today it's 363.83 -- that's actually over 38x. The author doesn't realize how quickly people forget, adapt, drop grudges in the name of convenience.

But even then, unless Uber develops and owns severe patents on the self-driving technology, the self-driving car inventory would just be a commodity available to every competitor too — meaning it would be a race to the bottom on prices and potentially fewer barriers to entry, unless they use lobbying to create a livery licensing racket for self-driving cars to protect some oligopoly of ride hailing services.

My bet is some form of oligopolistic regulatory capture is the long-term plan (similar in spirit to ISP oligopoly), because if self-driving cars are a commodity it still doesn’t look like that offers a path to profitability.