[aantix]

Most people finance vehicles that cost much more than 20K.

I'd gladly pay or finance a robot that could have dishes clean, laundry folded, and carpets vacuumed by the time our family got home.

[drusepth]

I don't think a cleaning robot and a vehicle are in the same category, as vehicles are more a necessity (at the very least to get to and from your jobs, to buy groceries, etc) and a cleaning robot is squarely a luxury.

[rendang]

A car saves you time walking/biking, a robot saves chore time. Depending on depreciation, it's feasible that you could go do minimum-wage level work on Doordash using the chore time you save from the robot and still come out ahead. E.g. 5 hours/week at $20/hour = $5200/yr

[brailsafe]

> A car saves you time walking/biking, a robot saves chore time

Mileage varies. My impression is that on net, many people borrow money for the vehicle and end up adjusting their lives to depend on it, so much so that in their head they think they're saving time, but if they'd put that money into their home budget and moved closer to where things are, they'd get more exercise, be more socially healthy, and also waste less time and money driving. In aggregate, this makes everything worse and perpetuates the cycle. I sure as hell wouldn't move somewhere I had to drive to and from if I didn't already have the car, and I sure as hell wouldn't buy a car to get to a job unless the nature of my work required it. Not again.

[jader201]

Vehicles, when first invented, were 100% a luxury, not a necessity.

They only became a “necessity” once they went mainstream and the world started evolving with vehicles becoming a part of everyday life.

I can certainly see the same thing happening with residential robotics.

[nancyminusone]

Only way I can see that happening is if you somehow get fired for not folding your laundry, in the same way people are fired when their car breaks and they can't make it to work.

[jader201]

At some point, household robots — once they become mainstream — can do things around the home that you depend on, and if/when they break down, prevent you from being able to work/get to work.

Or, if the stress of doing everything they do is too much, and interferes with your ability to work and do other things you once had the time to do.

[stef25]

So many people talking like cleaning services don't exist

[si1entstill]

> I don't want to hire out a cleaning service and deal with the whole human component.

I've used on in the past, but I found that I was routinely dissatisfied with how they were doing things and I felt I needed to maintain a certain level of tidiness to allow them to clean properly. I think there is an intrinsic cost to having hired staff in one's home that most consumers would be factoring in, consciously or not.

[aantix]

I'd want cleaning to happen every day during the week/

Probably $80/day for someone to do everything I want done. 20 days a month.

$1,600/month.

It'd take two years, and the robot has paid for itself.