My theory is once the novelty wears off and the high tech jaguar carriage is eating margins, public robo taxis will be about as fun to ride in as a public toilet. The lack of a person and the social pressure that implies (and legal protections) means people will do just about anything in the robotaxi. Cameras and deplatforming will work for a while but it’ll turn into more an accumulation of small things - spilled drinks, garbage left behind - then eventually it’ll be a race to the bottom where most people ride in relative filth while people continue to private cars because they want to avoid sitting in semen stains.
FWIW, for a lot of us in the city, the novelties been off for a while. It's now completely replaced uber/lyfts for me, because the driver is a lot more patient, especially with loading children (mini-car seat installation, strollers et al.) and a 100% of my rides have been completely uneventful, no notes, no garbage, no "wAyMo in AccIdeNt". My wife feels safe taking them at night.
I realize digital journalism has no space for this, but I wish there was space for the rest of the public to get messages like: "this service came up and is boringly being used as intended".
Right but this is now. The novelty is still there and margin compression hasn’t really happened yet. Being a loss leading jaguar vehicle with plenty of off time to clean and reputational concerns are still top of mind. Novelty here didn’t mean for you - it meant for companies operating driverless cars. The next step is enshitification then dive to bottom minimal margin maximal volume businesses.
Of course major infractions will be caught. Taking a dump in the Waymo on camera will be punished. But the small incremental dirtying caused by constant and increasingly negligent use unmediated by social cohesion will lead to the public bathroom effect. Margin compression will require taxis reduce amenities and increase time between service stops. There will probably be tiered services but the bottom tier will be disgusting. I’ll put my $20 on it now.
I think the key difference is they can just easily ban you from the service if you damage the vehicle, and every ride is tied to your account from the beginning. Those things can always happen in Uber/Lyft, but I imagine the fees you can receive and the risk of being banned completely keeps it under control.
I just watched a video where a guy kayak'd down a new york city river with countless electric share scooters thrown into the water by people who just didn't want to pay for a scooter ride. All up and down the river for 8km they were there.
This has been going on for years. A large part of it, at least in my experience, is people who object to scooters being parked in a manner that blocks pedestrian or cyclist paths.
One particularly funny incident I'm aware of involved an acquaintance who was overcharged by a scooter company and couldn't get a resolution via support. Being a 'frontier justice' sort of fellow, he rounded up 20+ scooters and chucked them all into a pond in the name of justice.
Difference being that now there isn’t a driver there to recognise the damage - now I have to take a million pictures of the inside of my auto taxi and report any damage promptly so I don’t get blamed for the piss covered seats by the next person and banned from the platform. I don’t trust the cameras to capture everything they need to.
I wonder how much of this would happen in a place like Japan or Korea. I haven't been to those countries, but heard that they have higher standards of cleanliness and people generally don't litter etc
A little bit funny, these two adjacent paragraphs:
> Anyone who gets in the Waymo and sees the note “can feel this emotion of surprise, joy or inspiration” at seeing someone putting themself out there in an unorthodox way, [dating coach Joyce] Zhang said, potentially prompting riders to ask themselves: “What can I do to put myself out there in the world?”
> The 26-year-old single man did not respond to a reporter’s text and voicemail seeking comment.
Being hounded by a Washington Post reporter wasn't the world out into which he lightheartedly intended to put himself.
It's like when Vice spilled the beans on late nite Chinese restaurants serving "cold tea" after legal hours for alcohol. Completely ruined it for everyone. Some things don't need to be whistleblown.
I've been working in tech since 2008. Nobody ever cared where anyone worked from. I've spent many summers digital nomadding.
Then, the pandemic happened and some reporters started writing articles about it, as if it was invented during the pandemic. HR departments got wind, and now many companies have formal policies about how many days you're supposed to badge in, or how long you're allowed to work remotely.
There's a journalistic trend churning out bullshit stories about "quiet quitting" et. al. and I hate it. Executives take them at face value and make reactionary policies based on some filler they read online.
Was it really this way in general or just with some little startups who didn’t mind taking risks? As far as I remember employers always cared where remote workers were for tax and other reasons (sanctions, compliance with local regulations, etc).
I believe you only need to work at a particular location for 6 months in a year to be considered a resident for tax purposes. But yeah there’s a certain flexibility with the truth if you go over but it’s not like the biggest deal since you’re paying state taxes either way and not that many people do it anyway.
It gets even more complicated when treaties are involved because they’ll supercede the law, have a lot less jurisprudence and are often unreadable gobblygook.
You end up with rules like (paraphrasing):
“If a member of a contracting state contracts in the other contracting state, they will only pay taxes in their other contracting state”
I vividly recall a coworker skyping into a department all-hands via satphone from the galapagos and we were doing work for the ACLU and Unicef at the time, not exactly a garage band startup.
The articles I read just made the people seem like they were doing their job as the description was written. I still don't understand that whole thing.
That can be tricky if you don't have a business that allows you to work. Mostly works.
And then you run into some country that doesn't think it's cool. The US has just joined the club of countries who arrest people on that basis, but there have been quite a few others for a while.
I like CyberChef for having a whole bunch of such tools bundled into one page, and especially that you can string them together into a pipeline: https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
The legend has that back in USSR journalists published extremely critical piece in a national newspaper about some car drivers using headlights flashing to warn oncoming drivers about hidden traffic police speed checkpoints, and the next day and since then the whole country was doing that.
Easy solution, robotaxis know who call the car and have cameras. They can fine and/or ban people who abuse the taxis.
And yes, it's abuse. Without enforcement the interiors of robotaxis will look like telephone poles covered in stickers for causes, ads for bands and events, ads for sex workers, etc...
There is literally no reason to do this for a piece of paper vs. for a sticker or a flyer that's stapled on. The core difference is the papers will be there for a day, a few hours, then go. The telephone pole stuff stays there forever and just builds up.
One is vandalism, the other is literally just leaving something behind.
There is every reason to do this. Because it affects the next customer in a negative way which dissuades riders. I for one will rate my ride as 1 out of 5 stars if it's not clean and has flyers/ads/notes left by previous riders. Will you enjoy it if you get into a car and it's got a bunch of Maga propoganda or if you get in ar with your children and it's got a bunch of flyers for sex workers? Both are vandalism.
If you can't leave the car clean then you shouldn't be allowed in the car except in exceptional circumstances.
Oh man NYC taxis. I swore them off after one too many "Oh the cardreader is broken" lines. I just explain I'm traveling for work and my company card is they only way they'll get paid et voila the card reader is magically working again! Whereas not only do Uber and Lyft only take digital payment, but both offer direct integration into my corporate expense system. Bring on the robo taxis: one less scammer in the loop.
* Waymo as you go - no ads, up front cost of $50 per ride to unlock then 0.50/mi mileage fee after 5 miles (get em hooked)
* Waymo Standard Plan w/ Ads, 3 rides per month included then adhoc charge per ride (unlimited miles). May pick up other “standard” passengers en route to final destination
* Waymo Plus w/ fewer ads, 10 rides per month. Priority seating/delivery
* Waymo Luxx (no ads, more coverage , free rides all month, high priority)
* Waymo God - same as lux but now you have access to api data of the vehicles, riders, audio data, video data, and historical routes. Great for your local LEOs or federal bois.
Worse is they’re gonna keep you locked in the car while the ad plays at full volume. But hey, some dev is gonna get their yearly bonus for implementing that …
I live in a remote town. Whenever I go to the big city and catch a train I’m utterly flabbergasted by all the advertisements on the platforms and in the actual trains.
No wonder everyone looks like a zombie.
FWIW, for a lot of us in the city, the novelties been off for a while. It's now completely replaced uber/lyfts for me, because the driver is a lot more patient, especially with loading children (mini-car seat installation, strollers et al.) and a 100% of my rides have been completely uneventful, no notes, no garbage, no "wAyMo in AccIdeNt". My wife feels safe taking them at night.
I realize digital journalism has no space for this, but I wish there was space for the rest of the public to get messages like: "this service came up and is boringly being used as intended".
Of course major infractions will be caught. Taking a dump in the Waymo on camera will be punished. But the small incremental dirtying caused by constant and increasingly negligent use unmediated by social cohesion will lead to the public bathroom effect. Margin compression will require taxis reduce amenities and increase time between service stops. There will probably be tiered services but the bottom tier will be disgusting. I’ll put my $20 on it now.
I think the OP is on to something.
One particularly funny incident I'm aware of involved an acquaintance who was overcharged by a scooter company and couldn't get a resolution via support. Being a 'frontier justice' sort of fellow, he rounded up 20+ scooters and chucked them all into a pond in the name of justice.
Human interaction always positive, and they can ban the bad riders or charge their credit cards.
> Anyone who gets in the Waymo and sees the note “can feel this emotion of surprise, joy or inspiration” at seeing someone putting themself out there in an unorthodox way, [dating coach Joyce] Zhang said, potentially prompting riders to ask themselves: “What can I do to put myself out there in the world?”
> The 26-year-old single man did not respond to a reporter’s text and voicemail seeking comment.
Being hounded by a Washington Post reporter wasn't the world out into which he lightheartedly intended to put himself.
Why can't journos leave anything alone man
I've been working in tech since 2008. Nobody ever cared where anyone worked from. I've spent many summers digital nomadding.
Then, the pandemic happened and some reporters started writing articles about it, as if it was invented during the pandemic. HR departments got wind, and now many companies have formal policies about how many days you're supposed to badge in, or how long you're allowed to work remotely.
There's a journalistic trend churning out bullshit stories about "quiet quitting" et. al. and I hate it. Executives take them at face value and make reactionary policies based on some filler they read online.
Was it really this way in general or just with some little startups who didn’t mind taking risks? As far as I remember employers always cared where remote workers were for tax and other reasons (sanctions, compliance with local regulations, etc).
Resident just means that country taxes your worldwide income.
Even if non tax resident they have a claim to income earned in that country, which arguably includes remote work while you live there.
Depending on local laws, not legal or tax advice etc
It gets even more complicated when treaties are involved because they’ll supercede the law, have a lot less jurisprudence and are often unreadable gobblygook.
You end up with rules like (paraphrasing):
“If a member of a contracting state contracts in the other contracting state, they will only pay taxes in their other contracting state”
And then you run into some country that doesn't think it's cool. The US has just joined the club of countries who arrest people on that basis, but there have been quite a few others for a while.
Note: It's made by the UK equivalent of the NSA
Heh
And yes, it's abuse. Without enforcement the interiors of robotaxis will look like telephone poles covered in stickers for causes, ads for bands and events, ads for sex workers, etc...
One is vandalism, the other is literally just leaving something behind.
If you can't leave the car clean then you shouldn't be allowed in the car except in exceptional circumstances.
like black mirror: ads on every surface, with sound, and if you close your eyes the vehicle stops
* Waymo as you go - no ads, up front cost of $50 per ride to unlock then 0.50/mi mileage fee after 5 miles (get em hooked)
* Waymo Standard Plan w/ Ads, 3 rides per month included then adhoc charge per ride (unlimited miles). May pick up other “standard” passengers en route to final destination
* Waymo Plus w/ fewer ads, 10 rides per month. Priority seating/delivery
* Waymo Luxx (no ads, more coverage , free rides all month, high priority)
* Waymo God - same as lux but now you have access to api data of the vehicles, riders, audio data, video data, and historical routes. Great for your local LEOs or federal bois.
They're very much in the first phase right now.
Not the future I expected, but honestly sounds like a fun little experiment.
Hopefully that exposure help the young man more than that
Probably a twilio number that will filter out any other messages and calls and he can shutdown whenever.
Like toilet notes ? Dirty message + phone number ?