Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway
(techcrunch.com)490 points by achristmascarl 4 days ago
490 points by achristmascarl 4 days ago
There’s something to be said for being able to not be forced to deal with a person, but I see something different personally.
I’m “old” (40s) so I didn’t grow up with Uber. Maybe that colors my take.
I don’t want to hire random Joes. If I wanted to buy a lift from a random person, I’d expect it to be very cheap.
If I’m hiring someone to drive me from A to B I want a professional service. I want professional drivers in a fleet of maintained cars.
With Uber/Lift you don’t know. Many drives do a great job and treat their cars/passengers like they’re professionals. Others don’t.
The taxi industry sucked. They had no competition and could get lazy and do a terrible job and people still had to use them anyway. That needed fixing.
But I don’t think the lesson we should learn is “taxis bad” but “bad service is bad”. And Uber/Lyft being so variable is not a plus at their prices.
The professional driver in a professional fleet service exists. It existed in the taxi era too.
If you ever see an aggressive driver cutting their way through traffic in a perfectly maintained Escalade or Navigator heading towards the airport, that’s them.
Black cars existed before Uber and Lyft -- in fact, that was how Uber started.
Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional drivers) as an option.
> Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional drivers) as an option
In my experience, Uber Black means the driver owns a professional-grade car. Whether they’re a professional driver who treats their clients professionally, e.g. not taking phone calls during the ride, is another matter.
What qualifies a professional driver? Lots of uber trips? A taxi licence? A chauffeur cap? A clean car? A person being employed by a company? Not sure but I suspect it's highly subjective. You can book a premium Uber. Or a limousine like the one some airlines offer as a business class package.
Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a human being in the car with me.
It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone rude, or a distracted driver...
Just let me sit in peace, alone with a robot.
1950: cars give you the freedom to go anywhere you want. Artificial fertilizer puts an end to hunger in industrialized world. Yeehaw!
2000: you are a second class citizen who can’t even get a job in many places if you do not have a car. Also the median person is overweight. But here is this new internet thing that lets you get everything you need in life sorted out with no need for human interactions. Yeehaw!
2025: the average person can no longer hold a conversation with a stranger for five seconds without having an anxiety attack. Oops!
Indeed. The market is exposing the truth here, whether that's the outcome some would prefer or not. These dense, wealthy, coastal regions are an endless fount of talk about how flyover suburbia is an unhealthy manifestation of isolation. Yet here we see that when given a choice in these same areas with their various competing taxi systems, isolation has significant monetary value.
Going outside costs $200 a day, and i cant afford to spend 1/4 my paycheck 7 times a week.
Also, I'm just doing my best to get the most out of the ludicrously high rent is pay every month.
I think you’re kidding, but I’m not sure. Can’t you walk to a park or ride your bike or something for free?
There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a wash.
[Caveat: there aren't many Lyft drivers in my town, so I have only used Uber]
The problem is their system extorts you into tipping. If you don't tip, the driver will give you a 1/5 rating. If your rating averages low enough, nobody will pick you up. It's more of a bribe you pay for a good passenger rating than an actual tip.
As a result, you're forced to tip if you want to use it long term.
Personally, I'm hoping Waymo takes Uber's lunch money. I will gladly pay more for a service has not been infected with tipping.
Sure, nobody has to tip anyone. But I do tip taxis and etc, typically about 30%, and it factors into my overall price perception.
I'm just saying $15 that I will add a tip to vs $20 that I have no intention or inclination to tip isn't anything more than I don't have any expectations or empathy about tipping a machine. It doesn't seem particularly complex an issue about why Waymo can charge the same amount that I am willing to pay anyway.
Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back seat)?
Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more than coach."
Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.
> Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft
It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human driven one.
> It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human driven one.
If this were broadly true, Waymo would be everywhere. If it is true, and that’s a big if that it isn’t being subsidized by the rest of Alphabet, it is only true in a very, very, tiny area of the Earth.
On the other hand, Uber is a publicly listed company with public financials already operating globally with profits.
> where you can't even fit two people in the back seat
I'm in LA, so I'm still skeptical about "safer". Granted, that's not a high bar, but I know who's accountable if an Uber/Lyft crashes.
I don't know if this is still true in the age of cellphones and uber, but when I was young, women were often advised not to take taxis alone, especially when drunk. There were a few high-profile rapes and murders.
As an bald, middle-aged man such risks are negligible for me, but I can see how some people might prefer a driverless vehicle.
Yeah I'm an ugly middle aged man myself. I'm more worried about the car than the person in it in my case. And I don't trust the tech yet in my area.
The driver whose main asset was the car that just crashed, and whose insurance may or may not be valid?
Still an easier battle than fighting a millionaire tech company on uncharted legal territory. Most of thr battle will be from my health insurance finding a anyone else to pay in that scenario.
but do you care for accountability or more safety (through lower crash rate)at the end of the day?
Between modern car safety standards and modern US healthcsre: accountability. The worst case scenario (where I still live) is drastic and I'd rather not add fighting a tech company in court on top of the medical burden, which I'll need to do just to afford the latter.
Yes, I assume these are recorded to prevent vandalism. To be fair, someone might get legitimately sick in the car (ex. child). So Google can review the tapes and decide if it was intentional or not.
Regarding retention of these video recordings, you should check the Waymo user agreement in your area. You might even have the right to ask them to delete it earlier.
Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc.
I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless experience too.
It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced social interaction may be having the effect of promoting automated systems as a reaction.
As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain customers while scanning their items, it's either that they know each other or it was initiated by the customer. I always choose staffed checkout over self-checkout because it's literally less effort for me, but I could imagine American social expectations at checkout —"How are you doing today?", "Oh these apples look amazing!", "Having a party are we?"— absolutely tipping the balance of effort and pushing me to self-checkout.
For me the appeal of self checkout is that everyone gets in the same line and then fans out to the next free checkout machine. I don't have to wonder if I chose wrong when I see all the other lines moving faster. Some places with human cashiers (such as Marshall's) do this, and it's great.
I'm not an introvert by any means, but I still choose whichever system is likely to work better.
At the supermarket, if I'm doing my monthly giant shopping trip and filling the car with non-perishables, I go through the attended checkout. Those people are quick and accurate, and there are two of them -- a checker and a bagger.
But if I only have one or two items, there's no line at the self-checkout, and I just throw the stuff into my backpack.
I wonder if a lack of class divisions is what encourages small talk in our society.
One thing about automated systems is that they have to work perfectly or they don't get used. I thought about this when taking the tram from the terminal to the parking facility at O'Hare Airport. I honestly don't know if the tram has a human driver or not. If that tram has a breakdown, it cause instant gridlock throughout the airport. And the way you make things work better (in the traditional quality control sense) is to make them more predictable.
And admittedly, I'm not shy, but I'm just a bit muddle-headed. With an app, I can see every detail of my request on the screen (and be looking at Google Maps on another screen maybe, or other information sources) before I click "accept." This makes it easier. But when I click "accept," I really don't care if the car that shows up has a human driver or not. I'm also pretty much oblivious as to whether it's a Mercedes or a Chevy.
It was an old school approach to appear friendly, which in theory makes customers more comfortable and encourages retention. Small steps to build a community. At the very least, you don't want to appear like that unresponsive cashier who's clearly having a bad day and grimaces at you when you say 'hello'.
It's definitely a generational issue. Gen X and older seem to appreciate small talk more than most millenials and pretty much all of Gen Z.
> It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced social interaction may be having the effect of promoting automated systems as a reaction.
That's not it. The issue is that it is FAR easier for me to interact with automation than some completely incompetent service worker.
Yes, I get it. The service jobs pay so poorly that nobody competent wants to work them. However, at the end of the day, I simply want to accomplish my task and get going. For example, if you're drunk or stoned off your ass, to pick a totally random (not) example, you're probably in my way.
Because of general levels of incompetence, automated systems are quite often better than most service workers I'm interacting with. Additionally, the service worker probably is limited to the same authority as me ie. totally unable to help because they are completely stuck with the same shitty web interface to solve my problem as I am.
If the automated systems work I'd use them. Instead, USA systems are designed around trying to prevent theft and they error in the store's favor. I've had those automated systems scream that I haven't put my purchase in the bag. The purchase being single envelope of yeast, too light to measure. So it screams and scream "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG" until some employee comes over and presses reset on the machines. Meanwhile the entire store is glaring at you.
So yea, I've stop using automated machines in the USA.
Definitely a store choice. I am in an area with Publix grocery stores and have never had an issue with self checkout. I bring my own bags and have a bag in the bag area and one in the cart and can scan items and put them right back in the bag cart without any issue. They have a person monitoring the 5 stations and clearing alcohol purchases and other issues and it goes very fast. They also pay their people well, so the staffed checkout lanes are also very fast. I just personally prefer packing my own bags, even though I’m not as quick as the workers.
i avoid those stores, i agree it’s very irritating. Stop & Shop is a good example. The checkout machine is constantly weighing the bag! Ugh.
As an FYI there are stores that DON’T have annoying self checkout machines: Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Costco, Home Depot, and a few more…
I don't think it's an USA thing. I completely stopped using the self checkout at my closest store. When I put a fucking 12 pack of toilet paper on the scale and it errored out.
I mean, you can error out at food stuff that loses weight over time (fresh bread for example), that may be acceptable. But at known weight toilet paper?
Flagged and dead? Are we to take that as Y-Combinator officially endorsing violent rioting and property destruction?
This is why I’m long AI as well - people will pay a premium for inferior service if it means they don’t have to talk to a human
Tesla fsd and Waymo are far different in the technical sense.
Are they cleaned after each rider? How can they not build up an odor, lol
I mix and match but I’ll take a Waymo if it’s <= $5 more for these reasons:
1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver is the same style. If it says it’ll be there in 7 minutes it will be 7, not 5 and not 10.
2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It’s comparable to an Uber black not a regular Uber.
3. It’s so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants and I can take time loading him in without a driver being impatient.
4. They’re very clean. I’ve never been in a dirty or bad smelling Waymo. That’s very nice.
5. No aggressive driving. I’ve had Ubers that scare me weaving between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
I’m seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a rolled up bundle of used bandages.
People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars condition important. For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They’ll be cheap, but you’ll get what you pay for. Private driverless cars will be the premium alternative.
Why do you assume the surveillance will go away as they become cheaper? The taxi company know who is in their car and they have access to interior cameras if something happens. In many respects, it is going to be even more difficult to take a dump in one and get away with it than if a human was driving it. They have your credit card number and visual evidence of what you did, they will just charge your card automatically for things like puking.
> For now they’re well surveilled and a premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom.
So, like transit?
I will likely have my own personal self-driving vehicle. And I'm 100% sure that there'll be an upmarket segment with slightly more expensive cars that are kept more clean than the rest.
did you report it? Ideally the person that left the bandages in the car would get flagged. They get flagged a few more times for littering in the car they get banned.
Yes, you don't know if it was the previous person, previous previous, etc but if they are a repeat litterer it won't take long to figure out who it is and warn them they'll lose their privilege to use the service if they continue to abuse it.
You’re experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
Waymo should charge dirty customers more to pay maids to clean it.
they kinda too, they will charge you $50/$100 if you make the car dirty
not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation
I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently for example.
second I'd assume they would start charging you for point 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load, after all that's missed profit from other rides.
after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a Ioniq 5 (much cheaper feeling car than a Jag, with hard plastic everywhere). You want the jag? Expect to pay for it. So suddenly all cars aren't the same, and only some are comparable to Uber Black.
To summarize:
Point 4, followed by 3, followed by 2 and 1 (which imo are just one point). 5 I don't expect to change unless they have to start cost-cutting on compute and sensors, but I HIGHLY doubt that.
I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:
* Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often.
* I can control the music and volume with my phone.
* I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.
But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in a Waymo than in an Uber.
I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have, essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.
I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to sell me drugs.
I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we ever got going more than like 10 mph).
Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.
The list goes on.
It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid all that.
This is the thing that people don't realize about autonomous AI.
It's not primarily about saving money.
Autonomous taxis are superior to Uber and yellow cabs. It's a better experience, and it's far safer. Autonomous cars aren't cheaper, they're better.
When AI agents replace human jobs, any cost savings is secondary. A coding job where the AI does most of the grunt work is superior to a job where humans do everything. It's better for the worker (less tedium). It's better for the employer (consistent style, greater test coverage, security vulns evaluated for every function, follows company policy and procedures).
AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
(All this assumes some some not-yet-here future where "AI agents" are less flaky than today's LLMs.)
Things like "call center jobs" are where "superior" gets muddy.
They can be superior for the business. The business does not want to spend money. Now they aren't paying a person, and they have to worry less about a sob story convincing their agent to make an exception. Health insurance company, for instance, where the life-saving treatment was declined. Refund of plane ticket because the flight was delayed and normally the policy would be to deny it but this particular person missed his father's funeral as a result, so the agent takes pity. So it's "superior" for the company because it entirely IS about saving money.
Hard to say those are superior for the customer. And most of us aren't the megacorp-owners here. We're the customers.
So yes, AI agents could be the logical next step in the "turn people into robots" march of bureaucracy. But that's not a good thing.
Human interactions, human judgement, human empathy - these are features, not bugs. Consider also that loneliness epidemic. Let's make it even worse! (In the short term "not talking to people" is being seen as a positive here - because we've already raised a few generations of scared, not-socially-equipped kids, since these are old trends. How is people-avoidance-maximization working?)
> AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
Please don't use the present tense to describe a not yet realized future.
> less tedium
That may eventually happen, but most of the time current AI systems need a lot of handholding to reach human levels of accuracy. I personally find this kind of supervision extremely tedious, it’s more stressful to use a poor level 2 system than just drive yourself. Driving has surpassed that point, but it’s taken billions so extrapolating into other fields without that kind of investment is premature.
>AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs, screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial analysis, most business consulting like process redesign, etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
Just wait until your human needs inside the bowels of some corporate or government bureaucracy, that no matter what will inevitably make either human or algorithmically generated mistakes, are being "attended" by some AI agent that can feel nothing, cares nothing and of course doesn't really think for itself or use common sense outside the bounds of formal rules, and you find yourself fucked over by this in some absurd way.
Imagine all the so-called customer service (almost entirely non-human) that Google shafts its users with, about which so many people on HN have complained, but writ much larger, in all kinds of far more vital user attention scenarios.
No thank you. Human bureaucrats are bad enough, but at least there's an avenue for empathy and flexibility in many cases.
The AI fawning on some comments here lives in a bubble of perfect expectations that will die a horrible death in the real world, or cause people horrible miseries in that same real world.
Basically Level 1 call center stuff is useless for anyone who knows what they are doing (and hasn't just made a knucklehead mistake). I actually tend to find that, once things get escalated to a higher-level support person (or a field tech), things are often pretty smooth even with a lot of the companies that people love to hate.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that "superior" is in the eye of the beholder.
An AI manager might be "superior" in the view of the executives of the company, but that AI manager's reports might feel very differently. From a societal perspective, the employees' feelings are what should matter most, but from a capitalist perspective, the executives won't care if workers are treated poorly, as long as the work gets done and profits go up.
And I think we already see the shit experience customers get when customer service jobs are replaced by AI. I doubt that will ever improve, by design.
Remember, also, that computers only deal with situations and problems that they are programmed to deal with. AI is a little different, but still suffers the same limitations in that they can only deal with things they're trained on. Humans can make exceptions and adapt to new situations. If we get to AGI, perhaps that problem will go away, but I expect we'll be granted many new problems to deal with instead.
lol. Sure.
I’ve seen three of these implementations in contact centers. AI drives lower satisfaction and lower cost. That business is about delivering defined level of service at the lowest possible cost.
The advantage of Waymo is that it’s a first party service that doesn’t hide behind the fig leaf of an independent contractor. Easier to regulate those nexus points than to figure out of some dudes 2015 Sienna is safe or reliable.
On the upside, I've had Uber drivers in multiple countries help me buy drugs. Waymo hasn't hooked me up even once.
It could be good business for AI cars to start doing this too. You can't put an algorithm in prison, and the programmers can just say its a black box and nobody could possibly understand how it trained itself to do it. The company makes money off the extra rides, while having plausible deniability because maybe the customer just wanted a ride. IANAL.
Often you won't realize the problem until you're on a freeway and can't get out of the vehicle. Sure, you can ask the driver to get off at the next exit and bail there, but I imagine a lot of people would feel uncomfortable doing that, even if it's for something serious like a safety issue.
> I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped
Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
Yeah, sometimes it's unpleasant talking to a cabby, and sometimes he won't take a hint and stop talking. But you might learn something if you try to engage, instead of vibe-coding inside a surveillance robot.
>> Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
Desperation isn't an excuse for risking the life of your passenger and other road users or pedestrians.
So instead of giving my money to Google, I should get in a car where someone could easily kill me and others?
No thanks.
I’ve ridden in Ubers across Hwy 17 in Northern California and I’m pretty sure some of those drivers had never taken a non-90 degree corner in their life.
More than once I semi-jokingly texted people at work that if I didn’t make the next meeting it was because I met my untimely end in that car.
I rode my first Waymo last week through Inglewood and Santa Monica and I felt so much more safe than I have in other ridesharing systems.
I think ridesharing is not the end game for Waymo. If I could just straight up buy a personal vehicle that was a Waymo I’d do it tomorrow.
I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.
And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were just smoking weed/cigs in the car.
Ooh I know the ones you're talking about. YouTube has started recommending those to my elderly family members. They are pure brainrot. I suspect AI generated too considering the sheer volume the YouTube channels in question put out.
Cigs are the worst, they make me want to puke, and paying for the "privilege" of getting chauffeured in one? Ewwww
Same here. Waymo doesn’t make me feel car sick, while aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.
Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving is “solved” to the point they can start nickel and dime optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly aggressively at that point too.
A dime of commercially priced electricity is around a kWh depending on where you are. That'll take a car a lot further than you think, and the more aggressively you drive the more electricity gets used. The most efficient way to drive is the flattest, most leisurely route.
The only way aggressive driving becomes profitable is when you've exhausted your supply of cars. Even then, it's not clear to me that you'd increase profit in that time by driving faster, since one car over the course of a day might squeeze in one or two extra rides at most. Just having more cars that sit idle until needed would accomplish the same thing with no extra risk.
In fact, the biggest area for optimization is getting the car to the next rider from the end of a previous ride. But that's not about being fast, that's about positioning idle cars in the right places to minimize distance to potential riders. If pickup distance becomes a hard bottleneck, it's again about capacity, not speed. Most of the between-trip driving is not on highways and back roads, it's through dense areas with lots of stop signs and traffic lights, so increasing speed isn't even really feasible.
If aggressive driving is 5% faster, then your expensive investment (the cars and the business) might get a few percent better utilisation (assuming liabilities don't increase much). More likely to see aggressive driving on way to pickup?
Capital costs matter, and how quickly you get ROI matters.
Electric engines are very efficient; aerodynamic drag is by far the biggest source of efficiency loss. The most efficient traversal for a fixed time interval is fast acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top speed. OTOH the most efficient for same time interval for a gas vehicle would be a slightly higher top speed but lower acceleration / deceleration.
It's always a bad feeling when you get in the car and the driver is on the phone with someone and clearly starts talking about you in another language. Or even just mumbles something on the phone and you're not sure if they're talking to you or not (and they are, like 20% of the time). Super stressful.
>> driving dangerously
This is where self-driving taxis could succeed. I don't want self-driving on my personal car because I am more trusting of my own abilities. But I have had too many Uber rides where I've seriously considered asking them to pull over and let me out. Never any accidents but some really dangerous driving and a couple of drivers where it was 50/50 whether they were drunk or high. I'll trust the self-driving over a random Uber driver every time.
> I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously.
A weird route is generally fine with me (as long as it doesn't increase travel time by much; remedy for that case is to decrease the tip), but driving distracted/dangerously is an automatic low rating from me. I am pretty much an "always 5 stars" kinda person, but safety issues are serious.
This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no idea what the car or the driving standards will be like until you're in it. I trust my own driving over a Waymo, but I'd trust Waymo over an average Uber driver, let alone a bad one.
I've had some nice conversations with Uber drivers, but I've had some unpleasant rides too. I'd definitely pay a bit extra for a good driverless car. ('Good' being key. After trying out the Tesla FSD beta a couple times though, you couldn't pay me to ride in one of those without the ability to grab control.)