[malozite]

I honestly don't understand this. I enjoy driving, especially long distance. The benefit of being able to read a book or look at my phone rather than listen to music or an audio book is not worth anything like $8.50 an hour to me.

The general inconveniences of long distance drives like planning food and toilet stops, or delays due to traffic, weather or accidents would still be present.

I would pay a lot to be instantly transported to my holiday destination, but almost nothing to get there in the same time with someone else driving me.

[futevolei]

Other people don’t like to drive, simple as that. Some people would like to fly but can’t afford the ticket so they have to make a long miserable drive. Or maybe it’s one of those destinations that is a 5 hour drive where a car clearly makes more sense than a 45 minute flight (that ends up taking 5-6 hours door to door). Im sure you can appreciate how pay by hour would be a huge upgrade in this case.

[malozite]

The situation with the 5 hour drive which would be a 45 minute flight + 4-5 hours of flight overhead is completely orthogonal to whether or not the car is self-driving.

If you like to drive, you are fine with or without autonomous cars. If you don't like to sit in a car for 5 hours, you are SOL in both cases. Only if you hate driving, but do enjoy sitting in a car not driving do self-driving cars add value.

[futevolei]

It’s not orthogonal. Self driving 6 hours makes the drive a net positive. It goes from unpleasant/brutal to a net positive where you can sit in the car and do other stuff.