There are so very many opportunities for a better surface transport system than buses. Dynamic routing and scheduling, capacity somewhere between a city bus and a taxi, and potentially better economies of scale all make this far more appealing than what exists today.
Also – and I know acknowledging this will not go over well in some circles – requiring an app and a credit card will go a long way toward keeping riders of a certain disposition off the vehicles. No, it's not a perfect proxy for who will and won't make riding unpleasant or unsafe, but riders will intuitively understand it even if they don't want to think about it, and it will make a difference.
Anyone who knows something about transit already knows this is false. the idea has been tried and failed for hundreds of years. What people want is predictable transit that is there when they want to go and gets people places in a reasonable amount of time. Nobody cares about other stops.
People hate dynamic routing because it means they never arrive at the same time and in turn they can't use transit at all unless they plan to arrive way too early. Most trips are time sensitive, that isn't just the trip time, but also they have to be someplace at a specific time.
People hate dynamic scheduling because it means they can't take spontaneous trips. They can't be late for their planned trip. They will miss the bus once in a while because something didn't go to plan.
What people want is predictable routes that run so often they don't need to look at a schedule. They can figure out how to navigate it. Places people want to be will figure out those routes and location where it is easy to get to.
Okay, what people really want is Star Trek style teleportation. The point is to be someplace fast, not the journey. This is impossible though, so we compromise. the best compromise for transit is frequent systems that run predictable routes.
> But it misses the social context
Funny how their entire social context is "never encounter another human as you go from A to B"
It's funny. It's also dumb. An observation can be both at the same time--it's a cornerstone of humor. What it isn't is fundamentally true or revealing.
> their entire social context is "never encounter another human as you go from A to B"
Nope. It's recognising that humans have diverse and varying needs for interaction and privacy.
I like to dine out, even alone. That doesn't make everyone who eats at home alone an idiot. (That doesn't mean I can't make jokes about it. But they shouldn't be mistaken for truth.)
Well, they are not a solution to transport problems, or to traffic jams.
Yes, they can be complementary to other types of transportation. Yes, companies will enshittify them beyond measure if/when they reach a certain proportion of cars.
> It's recognising that humans have diverse and varying needs for interaction and privacy.
No. I don't think this was even uttered by any of these companies.
Waymo claims to be committed to safety: https://waymo.com/about/
Tesla: stress and safety https://www.tesla.com/fsd
Zoox: purpose-built taxi shaping the future of transportation https://zoox.com/about
Nor to world hunger.
> companies will enshittify them beyond measure
A hypothetical applicable to every mode of transit, private and public.
> don't think this was even uttered by any of these companies
Things can be true without being in a corporate press release. (Also, you're the one who originally argued these services' "entire social context is 'never encounter another human as you go from A to B'." If not being in a press release is an argument against one, it 's an argument against the other.)
Though, in this case, it has been said: "Waymo gives you your own personal space to focus on more meaningful things" [1].
Ah, the good old ad absurdum.
These companies literally hail themselves as "future of transportation".
> A hypothetical applicable to every mode of transit, private and public.
These are private companies looking for profit. These are not hypotheticals given what is happening to other cars and car manufacturers.
> Also, you're the one who originally argued these services' "entire social context is 'never encounter another human as you go from A to B'."
These are literally robo taxis. A taxi is literally a car that is taking you from A to B. And they are also removing the driver from them. Oh, and don't forget the existing of things like Boring Co. which exists almost solely to undermine public transport.
Their intended future is nothing but endless roads with isolated vehicles going from A to B. There's no other "social context".