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by krebby 1116 days ago
If no one steps up to challenge Waymo in this space in a reasonable timeframe, Waymo wins. If they do, Uber wins.

Uber's play is as a platform. They win if there are several SDC providers (with working autonomy). As an analogy, they're Android; they want to own the network and have multiple operators plug into the Uber app, while the hardware makers don't want to do the work to spin up an expensive 2-way marketplace. Waymo is playing at the iPhone game. They want to be the biggest market operator, and can get away with not owning the top of the funnel for the time being. If other operators fall far behind in progress, Waymo will spin up the investment to vertically integrate and try to siphon Uber customers off that way.
2 comments
deegles 1116 days ago
What does it mean for a SDC platform to "win"? They either drive safely or they don't.

We're setting up for the biggest "winner take all" product-market fit in history.

Besides, ~99.9% of people won't have the expertise to make an informed decision on which provider to use (if they even have a choice).

The only losing scenario is if one is particularly bad, leading to a ton of regulation (like a FAA for SDCs).

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repsilat 1116 days ago
The game theory isn't really winner take all. In a two-sided market like Uber (drivers and passengers) it's nearly impossible to bootstrap competition, but with autonomous fleets it's just a matter of capital. You can dump 100 vehicles into a market and be a local player pretty quickly, and the between-city efficiencies aren't super important.

Developing the tech is getting cheaper too (sensing hardware improvements, ML improvements) so the first-mover advantage likely won't lead to stable moats. Competition will be more like Apple/Android where constant improvement (probably on cost) is necessary to maintain a lead.

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Tepix 1116 days ago
If another company solves self driving after Waymo, they can still enter the market. I would usually give new, cheaper competitors a try. Who wouldn't?

Uber is kind of an exception, i don't use their services because i consider them scum.

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polygamous_bat 1116 days ago
> I would usually give new, cheaper competitors a try. Who wouldn't?

Just want to point out that the failure case of self driving (if this product fails I crash into another car while going 80 mph) makes the race to the bottom slightly less plausible.

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