For national security reasons, several other countries won't allow Waymo (or Tesla or any other US company) to "win" in their territory. This will ensure that at least a couple other competitors remain worldwide regardless of whether it makes sense in purely economic terms.
replyWhat path is that?
Their self driving took a huge step back when they dropped Mobileye and honestly I don't think it's been the same since.
reply1. Leveraging data collected from Tesla owners. In theory, they have the data to learn the driving behavior from almost everywhere in the world.
reply2. Going directly for vision-only, no geofence system. Waymo's strategy has been to start with a proof-of concept and gradually expand geography and capabilities.
What, why? There's no winner-take-all aspect to shuttling people around. Taxi service is a commodity and taxis-without-drivers will also be a commodity. The switching costs for users are essentially zero.
replyThat's how we get Uber, Lyft, DiDi, Grab, Bolt, WeRide, BlackWolf...
I don't know how you can write that list and come to the conclusion that it's not winner-take-all. In their home market (US), Uber is ~75%, Lyft is ~25%, and all other competitors are sub-1% combined. Didi is similarly dominant in China, and so on. "Completely different markets have different winners taking it all" does not counteract the claim of winner-takes-all in any way, nor does listing utterly insignificant players like BlackWolf. Do you think people saying "winner-takes-all" in business contexts mean one company with literally 100% marketshare globally?
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