> I agree that there's still endless work to do, some companies are probably behaving in a way that is dangerous, they aren't half as good as you want them to be, it's not clear whether they are good for society or financially viable etc. etc. but it just seems weird that so few people are willing to be like, "fair play, they basically pulled it off, round of applause", even just for a second.

They're victim of the self-driving hype machine, which is not entirely Waymo's fault. Lots of people and companies were really promising the world with self-driving cars after making the initial "novelty" proof of concept stuff possible. But now they're in the nitty gritty of actually making it safe, dependable, reliable, and trusted, in less than ideal conditions (or in non sunny California conditions at all) and people and companies are finding that it's far harder to follow through on that.

To Waymo's credit, they have been steadily plugging along without crazy marketing or PR to overhype their product. They just have to win the long-game, if they can.