Novus America wrote:Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:I never said you can't. If you're willing to pay for it and pay to maintain it. Sure go for it.
It will be a luxury though. Most people won't spend the extra. Reason being that when the driver is factored out, pods are a vast human resource, they're just units in a big public transport system. "Tech bros" aka big business will have a huge advantage over little you. They'll be able to buy pods cheaper (in bulk) they'll be able to maintain them more cheaply, and they'll be better placed to provide a pod on call anywhere.
So go ahead, buy and maintain your own. But don't think that you networking with other private pod owners will ever be able to provide as good a service at the same price, as big corporations can. It will not be a business opportunity for you, sorry.
Public transport is a natural monopoly. Small players will never prosper. But since monopolies are bad, I think government will be too concerned with keeping that from happening (splitting up big providers when they get too much market share) to be concerned with the prosperity of one-pod owners.
You really haven't given this much thought have you?
If not for the inflation of
real estate that sits under every house, nobody would in fact buy their own house. Houses depreciate (they become broken, dirty and unstylish) but it's outweighed by real estate appreciation. Houses (with real estate) are investments so people buy them. Pods become broken, dirty and unstylish ... only an idiot would buy one if hiring each and every day was a cheaper option.
That said there may still be some people who travel so much that buying a pod is a cheaper option than always hiring. But expect the hire price to be very low (close to maintenance cost) for people who travel a lot: every company will want their business. And give up the idea of pods being a personal investment, that's car thinking.
And I am no neoliberal, big businesses taking away wealth from the rest of us is not something I support even if it might be “cheaper” and I will support action against it.
Because I value the freedom and prosperity of the individual not just the megacorp. But again I do not think that very likely.
Your assumption that taking the driver out of the car makes it fundamentally different I believe is fundamentally incorrect. Many companies do not want to invest the money and legal complexities in buying their own when they can actually make far more money just running an app without owning any cars (or pods) at all. Why pay to fix them?
Sure the company might make a bigger profit then I would owning the car and renting it, but they will make an even bigger profit not owning the car at all. It might cost them less to buy it then me to buy it but it costs them even less to not buy the car at all.
If you give them that option, I guess they would. Let private citizens stump up, then use their cars when they don't.
But that really begs the question why you would do what you're arguing for: buy your own pod. You admit someone else is going to profit from it, for minimal investment, but you'll put your money in so you can leave an umbrella and a spare pair of shoes in the back. Where's the return on investment for you? That usage fee you get paid is going to roughly cover the running costs for the rest of the time, so basically you get to use a pod for free. Which sounds great until you consider that you had to buy it and it won't last forever.
Plus them having to store unused ones during down times or while recharging.
And outside city cores you still will have to what for one to show up. They will not be continually around suburban and rural areas.
There would be plenty in the suburbs. There are people there, people are potentially customers.
If you're really out of town you would presumably ask the pod to wait for you. Doing literally nothing, that would be very cheap.
If you live on a farm, you'd be nothing to do with this thread. You'd probably still drive a car (fuel burning even). The only connection with the thread is what a rural person does if they need to go into town. I'm thinking, park on the outskirts and switch to a pod.
They only real excel in the type of areas that already have taxis.
Yeah cities. That is what the thread is about.
They are really just cheaper taxis but taxi price is not the only reason people use private cars.
The other reasons are basically fetishism. People have all sorts of irrational feelings about things they own.
(And taxi companies often do not own their taxis).
I think you mean taxi drivers? Yeah, you might want to think about why there are so few owner/drivers of taxis, not associated with companies at all. And why you would want to own a "driverless taxi" yourself, if you're not even going to get decent pay for steering it.
And no, land value appreciation is just one of many reasons people buy houses. People like to be able have the freedom to customize their house, and even with the depreciation of the house it still has value.
I never denied that houses have use value. I just said that it's appreciation of real estate (NOT of the house) that lead people to pay so much for them. It's the resale value: and if that was fixed by law at only a modest increase, the cost of all houses would begin to deflate.
Houses as assets almost never appreciate. Like cars (or pods) they wear out and are worth less over time.
Cars depreciate too yet still retain some value, thus can still contribute to your net wealth, especially once paid off.
Unless they're antique cars, cars lose value over time. What you're getting at with "they still have some value" I really can't see.
Plus people buy has a pint of status and pride, as well as the freedom to do what they want with them. To store things they do not want other people getting to (again as said before people store various things in their cars) as well.
You seem to have a very narrow set of priorities the mean YOU would prefer to just get the cheaper taxi but the problem is not everyone shares your priorities.
Oh they will though. When they see the prices. And of course there will be vans for larger items.