I also don't think direct democracy lost here. Most people don't want Uber prices to go up. Democracy always sucks for the minority / people who don't have voting rights.
I'm a brit so luckily for me, a lot of the issues in california don't really apply here (drivers have healthcare because everyone here has healthcare etc). It's unfortunate that we have no direct democracy, but do have good safety nets (at least comparatively). Meanwhile Cali has no such nets but does allow majority rule in this way.
I actually also like the Uber model because its honest (between the participants at least) . I hardly ever used taxis before, not just because of the price but also because of the service. "Your car is 10 minutes away" actually meant "your car has to complete 3 other 20min journeys before coming to you". "about £10" meant "£26 after a weird journey and no we don't take credit cards or give change". I imagine the same applied for drivers: people would misbehave in your car because there was no penalty for doing so. Dispatchers favoured other drivers because you were new.
The whole thing was a race to the bottom for everyone. Uber with a rating system and an algorithm that minimises waits has fixed that issue. That's their "killer feature" to me.
But I can see how people have issues with their model.
Uber rides are either going to get really cheap, or they are going to go out of business. Waymo doesn't have the labor overhead and will eat their lunch.
It is almost cute that we are trying to pass or block protections for a workforce that won't exist in 5 years.
I will take your bet. No way full self-driving is coming and no way Waymo will deliver a self-driving taxi in 5 years that will compete with a driver based taxi. I can see Waymo or the like picking gimmicky routes like Las Vegas airport to select hotels/stops or another easy route in an area without rain.
I don't mean the self-driving meaning that keeps getting reinvented every couple years to kick the can down the road. I mean the car is driving itself without a driver or remote driver in the majority of circumstances such as a rainstorm.
They specifically choose states close to the West Coast because the climates do not have serious weather or rain. Nevada, California, Arizona etc. SF is a weird city compared to other places with hills and odd obstructions so a lot of them moved to Phoenix for testing. From an outsider, the regulatory environment in Arizona appears to be easier for companies that want to do this type of testing as opposed to highly regulated California.
You're moving the goal posts. The Chandler Waymo service is entirely driverless and not on a fixed route, with expanded service coming next year and additional cities opening up in 2022-2023. I encourage you to read up on Waymo's progress - it's quite a bit farther along than most people think.
In the long run Uber goes out of business, since it can only be profitable if the drivers are actual slaves and earn nothing. Until of course people perfect AI taxis, then all Uber drivers can get unemployment, oh, wait.
