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The point is that one person, or a few people, can hoard all the money that would have gone to hundreds of workers.
Edit: and I’ll bet you $100 right now that they’ll still have a tip option.
For the first bit, sure, but it won’t stay that way for long. The price of these vehicles is dropping, and the price of humans is going up.
Point is that companies won’t pass the savings off to you ever. I’d be surprised if they stopped begging for tips after firing the people.
This is such a common misconception, if companies never passed savings on to us, we’d be paying absolutely astronomical prices and you couldn’t afford to buy anything at all.
Shirts used to be hundreds/thousands of dollars or days/weeks of your own time, a lot of people had to weave their own fabric and make their own clothes because they never earned enough money to afford to buy one pre-made since all their work went into feeding themselves. Average people didn’t own more than a handful of sets of clothes up until the industrial revolution. Almost all of the benefits of automation in fabric production has all been passed down to you.
You can now pick up a t-shirt from Walmart for $5, or a dress shirt for $50 both of which are far higher quality than what used to exist.
Profit margins for most consumer goods industries are not that high usually around 50% from creation to consumer (split between the manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer) and some industries are much lower even than that.
Clearly, companies only pass the savings along when a competitive market forces them to.
There are at least 3 different app based food delivery companies (uber eats, skip the dishes, door dash) in the city near me, on top of the fact that a lot of places have their own dedicated delivery people (Grocery stores, pizza, even liquor stores)
There’s clearly a competitive market in this space.
Shirts used to last decades too. I have a shirt in my closet that is 33 years old that’s in better condition than shirts less than a year old. A $5 Walmart shirt lasts a few months. You’re not getting the same quality.
Edit: I just read the last paragraph of your comment and you’re very mistaken about a lot of goods. They get 100+% mark-up at every step of the supply chain. Clothes at a place like Nordstrom have thousands of percent mark-up.
Shirts were automated 33 years ago too. I was comparing them to pre industrial revolution clothing which was heavy and itchy.
As for Nordstrom, those are luxury goods not consumer goods. You’re paying for brand names or fancy fabrics, neither of which are necessary to your life.
You’re thinking with capitalism of the yesteryear.
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How the car is going to buzz into my building, take the elevator, and deliver to my front door is beyond me. Technology is amazing!
You’ll have to tip it first, seeing as it’s wider than it is tall.
But they said I wouldn’t have to tip if they got rid of the humans!
Automated AI powered yeet cannon? The future is now.
Berkeley has had self driving robots deliver food for years. They roll in the sidewalk. When it arrives to your front door, you get a text and go down to the front door. Press a button on the app and it opens the locker door so you can retrieve your order
People thought wall-e was a funny animated movie. Turns out people actually are disgustingly lazy.
I’ve already had several Uber drivers text me and ask me to meet them at the car, so this wouldn’t be much different.
Even if you don’t agree with any of it, thanks for posting the news. That’s interesting.
I’d probably order more if it came with no driver to tip. I’m not sure if that a plus or a minus for me.
Just you wait. They’ll offset the tip with a “Driverless vehicle delivery” fee.
If cable, cell, ISPs and companies of that ilk are any hint, we’ll have to pay the upcharge on the items themselves, all of the food delivery company’s fees and surcharges, and then get double-dipped from the driverless car company for those same fees. They’ll also tack on a fee to rent the car while it drives to our homes, another fee for each second it sits waiting for us to go grab the food, a fee for each second of cloud computing time as it updates to the network, a fee for the electricity it uses, and as part of the Eula, we must top off the car’s batteries from our own charging stations thereby incurring that cost as well.
They’re using entire cars… for food… not a smaller vehicle? Does anyone else see the problem here?
Use 1500 kilos to transport 500 - 1500 grams. Move along now, nothing to see here!
May as well just get pneumatic tubes at this point.
Fuck yeah! Those things are awesome. When I was younger my bank had a drive up window, and another lane with an intercom and a pneumatic tube. I’d use the tube lane even when the window lane was open because I loved watching the capsule go shooting through the tube.
This is exactly what I expected to happen, it’s taking a bit longer than I thought, but that’s not surprising.
Is waymo a food delivery service or a car or a what?
Waymo is a company that develops self driving cars (well, not the cars, but the technology). They are focusing on robo-taxis. So like Uber without a driver.
Waymo is a Google company they will eventually make their own cars once they master self driving.
Because nobody else will drive 15 miles for a $2 dollar order.
Definitely makes sense to invest billions in solving this program that people won’t pay more than a pittance for the service.
Self-driving vehicles are not only here to solve food delivery.
In the US, the average American spends about 365 hours a year driving, about an hour a day.
I’d much rather use that time to work, read a book, or a dozen other activities. It’s over 6% of my waking hours.
Going a few extra feet out to get the food is a trade off I’ll make to get the food there fast and safe and presumably cheaper.
Can we just burn them again?
This is incredible, it feels like parts of the USA are so advanced.
Here in Sweden we’re going backwards, they even took out self-scanning at a lot of supermarkets due to theft.
In America they just close the whole store instead of adding employees back in
Parts of the USA never had self-scanning due to theft concerns.
Now there are stores that are pulling out of specific neighborhoods due to theft even with a cashier in place.
they even took out self-scanning at a lot of supermarkets due to theft.
That’s awesome! I guess I’m going to start stealing all the time now. I fucking hate self checkout, especially at places where you buy a lot of items.
