[bo1024]

I don't like the idea of Apple making cars for the same reason I'm uncomfortable with their phones: you won't own the car you're purchasing, in most meaningful senses of the word "own". (We have seen this problem with Tesla already.)

To your second point, I'm not sure that autonomous tech will be easily commoditizable. Some companies will have much better tech than others and consumers will prefer them. Think about internet search engines: The easiest of all industries to compete in, yet (or "thus") full of huge, monopolistic profits.

[baron816]

Search engines are free. Whether you own or hire a self-driving car, you're going to have to pay for it, but all you really care about is whether it gets you from point A to point B. It's quite binary--either it works or it doesn't. There is objective and subjective factors the determine preferences towards search engines and phone. But if all driverless car tech works the same, then you're not going to care which one you use as long as it's the cheapest.

[pritambaral]

> all you really care about is whether it gets you from point A to point B

If that was really the only reason people bought cars, we wouldn't have as many variants, manufacturers, models of cars.