Because it's not Waymo. It suggests that Waymo has a real competitor and Waymo-level tech has been replicated outside Waymo and their long lead over everyone else is evaporating because they have (to outside appearances) dithered so long. (One wonders if Waymo would even have 'been doing it for 6 months already' in SF if Cruise hadn't been ramping up in SF the past few years...)

From your Waymo link:

> All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now

Cruise is the first to do driverless (zero humans in the front seat) testing in SF. Waymo have been doing this for a couple years in Phoenix, but have not yet tested driverless in SF as far as I'm aware.

Because #2 is still close to #1? I personally am glad to read about this stuff and not just the next "point version of {$SOFTWARE_STACK} released today". I mean that's why we get to choose which article to click on. amiright?

6 months is not really a long time in the timeline of self driving cars which have been in development since the 70s.

...because no one other than waymo is doing it? This is still a big achievement.