[gojomo]

...and the price skyrockets.

Maybe. But maybe instead:

Routing and capital intensity (lack of car idle-times) continues to improve. Shared-rides in larger-vehicles (vans) grow in proportion and convenience. Cities expand pick-up/drop-off zones for car services. Attempts at monopoly price hikes spur freelance/coop/upstart competitors along the most profitable corridors, able to snipe Uber rides via overlay apps/services. So costs and prices stay low long enough until...

Driverless vehicles become the major mode of urban short-trip car travel. Driver costs are eliminated, insurance costs reduced, and capacity/intensity further improved – with high-capacity vehicles that tirelessly reposition without breaks/distractions. Automated rides stay nearly as cheap as 'mass' transit on dedicated rails, indefinitely.

[dougabug]

Who owns the cars? Who is liable for problems which arise? If I'm anywhere near home, I'm using my own self-driving car, not something used by tens of thousands of unknown people. If I'm somewhere else, I'd like to use a restricted set of cars of people that I know and trust and vice versa. Probably just trade favors and pay for gas/charging rather than a straight up fee. Would be nice to coordinate with a place to stay, so I don't have to do two separate tasks (esp if I'm visiting somewhere I have friends or family nearby).

Also, it seems like regulated utilities have been more effective at providing essential services widely at low cost than large private oligopolies such as cable and wireless, so I have no particular desire for an Uber/Lyft duopoly.

[gojomo]

Whoever wants to be in the business owns the cars, like every other rental/service offering. Whatever the liability challenges, they are likely less than current cars-with-drivers, after removing human error, emotions, and criminality.

You aren't likely to want to own your own self-driving car in a major city, unless you're an eccentric rich person, or a car hobbyist, or a old fogie. Urban garage/parking space is expensive for an asset that's idle 22+ hours of every day, and fueling/maintenance/looking-for-parking are likely not the best marginal use of your time.

What's your dislike of "something used by tens of thousands of unknown people", as long as it's well-maintained? Do you avoid libraries, sidewalks, parks, airports, shops, and restaurants?

Right now, Uber and other transport-network-providers are becoming "people I know and trust", because their systems have consistently delivered quick, clean, reasonably-priced rides across many times/places. App-dispatching a suitable-quality autocar from the nearest competitive local provider is going to save a lot of time/energy/pollution, compared to coordinating loaners from friends/family.

If transport regulators like city councils and taxi commissions were better at this sort of thing, they'd have bootstrapped a similarly rapid and ubiquitous ride-service years earlier, using their unique governmental coordination powers. Instead, they let a patchwork of inferior alternatives fester for decades.

I'm not sure of the eventual market structure of autocar-dominated city streets. Automation and standardization might make room for many providers, or just a few. Regulators could easily screw things up, by locking in specific practices or incumbent providers based on early guesses, biases, and corruption.

We'll just have to let lots of things be tried and see what works. For rapidly exploring the possibility space, the vigorous investor-fueled competition we're seeing now is very helpful.

[dougabug]

Do you spend most of your life sleeping on public beds, lounging on public sofas, and public furniture? Eat most of your meals in restaurants? Rent your clothes? I'll spend some time in a hotel if I have to (i.e. far from home, no friends or family where I'm going), but I don't pay to sleep in a hotel or couch surf in my own neighborhood, nor do I rent cars unless I'm out of town.

I own my own home, means of transportation, eat most of my meals at my own table...the idea of being a renter of all the major environmental necessities of life is simply not appealing to me in the slightest. I'd rather sleep in my own natural latex, bed bug free bed, and sit on my own sofa or read a book on my own chair, call me crazy. There's never sticky goo on mine, or weird smells. I like private ownership.

For me, Uber is the opposite of "people I know and trust," and I have no desire to have them monetize my movements.

[prawn]

This attitude will change over the next decade or two. As @gojomo said, the vast majority of people already use common cabs, buses, trains and planes. Convenience and price will win out. Street parking or off-street parking will become rarer and more expensive in cities.

First it will be the occasional users or those with a second car or on a budget, but eventually most of us will either pay per use or have an account for regular use rather than outright buying a car like we do now.

For commuting, many will be taking shared vans (possibly pod-based) that pick an efficient route rather than plying a typical bus route.

And we'll get the vehicle we need when we need it. You won't take a ute to dinner with your partner. You won't have a three-door hatch when you need to choose and bring home large items, or transport the family on a road trip.

The future Uber won't even be people you know or don't know. It will be a driverless car.

[gojomo]

Fair enough, I trust you on your own preferences, but car ownership is already trending down. More people each year are living in bigger cities. That's where ride-services are most convenient – and become even more efficient with a high density of cars and riders. And it's also where private car ownership can already be superfluous and expensive.

Self-driving cars-for-rent will get you places both faster and cheaper than possible in your own car. That could make private car ownership seem quaint or even ostentatious in most cities.

[dougabug]

Globally private car ownership is soaring, especially in countries such as China where public modes of transportation have long been dominant. Self driving cars will be great, I can't wait to own one, but I disagree that renting something that I use on a daily basis will be clearly cheaper than owning. Short term rents for similar quality are generally more costly than purchases or long term leases. Renting furniture and appliances is usually something poor people do in spite of it being more expensive in the long run, because as Michael Caine said, "Poor people can't afford good deals." One thing that's true is that people are getting poorer in America. Maybe that will force many of them into higher cost rentals. But I don't see the people on the waiting list for Teslas deciding that don't want one. A self driving Tesla makes it more desirable, not less. Cars are one of the major ways people express their sense of aesthetics and status. People don't have to buy Apple iPhones or Burberry clothes, but they do. The most iconic brands deliver the highest profits.

Rental cars carry costs that I don't have with my own vehicle: frequent transactions, additional liability issues, wasted mileage driven between fares, uncertain transit times, daily cleaning and inspection for damage, commercial licensing and insurance, middle men, management, marketing, accounting, additional taxes, regulations, and covenants. If I leave something important in my car, it's still there the next day. I don't have to worry about vomit in the backseat. I don't face a transaction cost and a delay (or the uncertainty of a no show) to go to work, to drive home, to hop in the car and go to the mall, or grab a bite. I can leave things in my car. I have less exposure to pathogens and pests from surfaces in revolving contact with thousands of strangers from all over the world, lower probability of exposure to cold and flu viruses, fewer vectors for bedbugs to travel into my home.

I can't see rent seekers (esp short term ones) being so far under my costs that after adding their markup, it will be particularly cheaper for me. The 5 year TCO for a Prius (staple of the ridesharing industry) according to Edmunds is a little over $18 a day at 41 miles per day, 44 cents/mile inclusive of insurance, gas, maintenance, etc. The average fare mile on the Peninsula for a cab is $3. I don't see ridesharing companies finding an order of magnitude in efficiencies and still delivering any kind meaningful profit.

Maybe private toilets will seem quaint and ostentatious, and we'll be soon freed from the tyranny of private bathrooms by happier times of public lavatories.

[gojomo]

You've convinced me that germ-phobic suburbanites will resist pay-per-ride services.

For city-dwellers, it's different, and the Edmunds TCO leaves out a lot. We pay $hundreds more per month for housing with parking. Then, we pay to find parking near our destinations in extra drive-time, money, and walk-time. And we ride for far fewer than the assumed 41 miles a day, 15K miles a year – so the fixed costs of car ownership are amortized over fewer miles.

That makes the per-mile costs of rideservices already roughly competitive or outright superior for many city-dwellers. That's especially true for the non-poor, who face a higher lost-compensation opportunity costs for every minute spent driving/refueling/parking/walking.

That's also before app-assisted multi-rider pooling, or automated-driving. Those could more-than-halve rideservice costs again.