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Comment by adoxyz | Hacker News Reader

I would assume cheaper and more reliable service.

With Uber/Lyft, you never know who you're going to get and what the experience will be like, and as someone that easily took 200-300 Uber rides per year pre-covid, I've seen some shit.

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In the case of Uber/Lyft the driver has another function besides being the driver: they are on the hook for the capital invested in the vehicle or their ability to lease one. That's a lot of money per vehicle and utilization is the responsibility (and risk) of the driver.

This is true, but note that for a self-driving vehicle, utilization is only bounded by demand and maintenance. An Uber driver can get tired or busy with other things, but a self-driving car can go 24 hours a day minus re-fueling/charging.

For example, we were taking an Uber through a part of a nearby city I'd never been in before, and approaching a confusing bit of roundabout, the driver leaned over to me and asked me which way to go :-(

Just the other night my driver turned too wide and started going the wrong way down the divided street. He u-turned and fixed it without any issue thankfully, but then he blamed it on the construction workers "moving the road" - which they definitely didn't.

I mean, that's not great, but I would take that over my SuperShuttle experience. At least your driver wasn't falling asleep repeatedly, despite apparently regularly spaced prompts from the company app to confirm he was awake.

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