Comment by conductr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by conductr | Hacker News Reader

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There is still some value in having a dedicated/always available option like car owners are used to. I live in a car centric city and maybe drive somewhere on average of 8 times a day (it's probably 4 on weekdays and maybe 20 on weekends). Uber is always near but still usually takes a minimum of 8-10 minutes and probably an averages ~12-15 minutes in my experience before I am entering the vehicle after summoning it. You can do the math and see that I would spend hours a day waiting in current world. If every vehicle was a Waymo then sure they'd always have one on my block at the ready, in theory. But in reality, a business will eventually seek to maximize efficiency and this will lead to a sucky UX.

People also use vehicles as cargo carriages, not simply human transport devices. I know I don't always immediately unload my vehicle when I transport things, sometimes it gets stored there. Sometimes the load time and the unload time don't even make sense to do back to back. Sometimes I load something knowing I will unload it next week. Some things I just carry around with me on the off chance I might need them while out and about. Anyway, there's a lot of nuance to this type of change and why owning a car might still make sense for a lot of people.

I would expect self driving cars to be a lot quicker and more available than uber.

Plus lets be honest Americans love their cars, a lot of them are never going to give them up on the principle of the thing, but their kids are likely to reach an age where they would need to learn to drive and just not see the point, self driving robo taxi's will be good enough.

You get in and out of your car 20 times a day on Saturdays? What hell is that?

Probably. I’m guessing. But it equates to 10 destinations.

3-4 are kid activities sports/birthdays/play dates (we only have 1 kid but he’s a busy guy!)

2 weekly dog grooming appointment (doodle!) have to drop her off then pick her up later, so it’s counts as 2

2 we eat out twice on Saturday and once Sunday

Rest are other social, family visits, or hobby activities along with a plethora of random errands; groceries, home center, and a long tail of specialty stores that are individually irregular but always a few every weekend (pool supplies, makeup for my wife, post office/UPS, etc.)

We shop online so mostly avoid malls and department stores unless it’s more of a boutique thing or something we want to see before buying. We don’t do food delivery or groceries unless it’s just curbside thing which is another trip. I hate the online/app shopping experience for things like groceries.

Sometimes I just drive half a mile to get a Big Gulp fountain drink or an ice cream cone with the kid. I could walk or bike, but it’s car centric and 100F outside.

It’s also a huge range and varies a lot by season. We certainly have some weekends we barely leave the house.

That sounds exhausting. I've got 3 kids and a dog and don't go out in the car nearly as much as that. 5 or 6 times a WEEK! I don't know how you have time left for the actual hobbies. We do though, do most shopping online.

> a long tail of specialty stores that are individually irregular but always a few every weekend (pool supplies, makeup for my wife, post office/UPS, etc.)

I always save stuff like that up so I don't need to make an extra trip out

It can be. When I’m exhausted, I take a trip and it involves lots of car rides and flights too.

Hobby time has suffered the most. My philosophy is spend as much time as possible with my kid while he actually wants to be around me. So that’s my hobby now. But I’m also a nocturnal person so I do hobbies from 9pm-3am. Helps that I have a low stress low demand job. I work about 30 hours a week and can do that any time I want. Some weeks I’ll do a 2 on / 5 off schedule. Or work a lot for a month then take the summer off. I realized that’s a luxury most people don’t have.

I do the bulk purchase thing too on lots of stuff but still it seems like there’s always a few places we need to go on any given weekend.

Where do you live that you can take 20 car rides in a day? Dense suburb?

I have a hard time (for myself, not doubting you) imagining that many things to do.

I guess dense suburb.

I’m in the suburban core of Dallas Texas. The area that was originally developed in 1950s as suburbs. It’s very much considered “in town” now as the area has sprawled greatly since. But it’s still very neighborhood-like. Most of my trips are 10 minutes or less from my house of total drive time.

Before having a kid I never understood the busy parenting thing, but I’m actually finding myself want to be at all the things and it’s a huge social thing that nothing since college/high school compares too. Meeting new friends as an adult is actually very easy if you have kids and want to be involved in things.

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