[kakabanga]

This is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future.

Its business model was sacrificing someone's income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone.

Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.

[bwilliams18]

But doesn't this business model entirely eliminate someone's income to be cheaper?

Is a total elimination better or worse than a reduction? I don't have an answer, and I see good arguments for each side...

[kakabanga]

Exactly. And that is something we human beings adapt to without noticing it. Telephone operators, newspaper boys, lumberjacks, meter readers have all disapeared. There were thousands of people who earned their life with it but eventually switched to new careers.

This will happen sooner or later and for sure there will be companies and individuals that will be affected by the change, but that is not enough reason to stop the development. And this is not Uber specific topic either. If not Uber, some other company will one day work on this.

[pmyjavec]

Do you really think it's fair to say that people who lose their jobs their jobs won't notice?

I hope Uber pay their taxes.

[ulber]

What they are actually eliminating is work, which is very admirable. After that it becomes a question of income redistribution. Ideally the income should be only partly eliminated (in a way that balances welfare with motivation to find a new job). But that's a societal choice the US would have to make.

[bastawhiz]

> But doesn't this business model entirely eliminate someone's income to be cheaper?

Think about this problem from Uber's perspective. More than two thirds of a fare go to the driver in most cases. Let's say eliminating the driver allows them to cut prices by 50% to account for purchasing a crapload of cars. Now imagine someone else builds self-driving technology (or licenses it) and copies the Uber business model.

A competitor building self-driving cars for-hire is instantly cheaper by a ridiculous margin. Uber would be overtaken by this competition in no time at all. This is unquestionably inevitable. Uber can't say "pay double (or more) so we can take the moral high ground and employ a bunch of fallible humans" because a.) humans are worse drivers than computers and b.) humans just cost more and nobody would pay to have a human driver.

Additionally, if Uber ever goes public, they're legally obligated to maximize return for investors. You can't keep human drivers around as a purely feel-good exercise.

[smsm42]

> But doesn't this business model entirely eliminate someone's income to be cheaper?

A lot of business models do. Horse carriages eliminated income of (most of) manual porters, and cars eliminated income of (most of) horse drivers.

Unless you are a worshipper of Ned Ludd, that's how technologies work and will always work. Something new replaces something old, and people whose income depended on the old stuff have to look for different income.

[chrismbarr]

Except now those people who would normally be drivers now get zero dollars from Uber. I do agree with you that this is the way for the future and I'm all behind it, however doing this does cut out jobs (eventually) for a lot of drivers. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, and I suspect there will always be at least some human drivers. I live in a small town and I really couldn't see them justifying the cost of this here. Where I live there's currently one 1 or 2 uber drivers anyway, and they aren't always active and I just have to call the regular taxi company.

[kakabanga]

It is better for those drivers to consider new jobs when there is a small push from a private company. Then there will be enough time for those drivers to adapt to a new environment. Think otherwise a government push for driverless cars. It would happen so quick that all those drivers would struggle until they find a new income.

[malz]

The difference between the idea (fire the drivers) and the execution (develop decades' worth of cutting-edge AI which kills people if it fails) is huge, though. You don't expect your usual fancy-app startup to develop this kind of technology.

[goshx]

Without hurting anyone? The goal is to don't need drivers.

[gorkemyurt]

Drivers don't care! No one thinks they are going to be an Uber driver forever most think its a temporary thing.

I am pretty confident self driving cars are going to create more jobs than they destroy. Whole new businesses will be economically viable once the transportation costs are super low, traffic is less of a problem and when you don't need parking. On demand economy 2.0.

[slig]

The Uber drivers probably not, but I bet the truck drivers really care, and they're 3.5 million on the USA, which is more than 1% of the population.

[kctess5]

The introduction of self-driving cars would definitely displace a large number of jobs - especially truck drivers - but this is not exactly a new trend. Technological unemployment has been affecting the job distribution for hundreds of years, with inventions like the wheel, plow, tractor, weaving machine, etc having a huge impact. In the 1900s, 41% of the workforce was in agriculture, by the 30s it was nearly half that at 21.5%, and in 2000 it was 1.9% [1].

I'm definitely interested to see how this iteration plays out over the next few decades.

[1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment