<story><title>Uber starts self-driving car pickups in Pittsburgh</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/1386711/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kakabanga</author><text>This is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future.&lt;p&gt;Its business model was sacrificing someone&amp;#x27;s income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone.&lt;p&gt;Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bwilliams18</author><text>But doesn&amp;#x27;t this business model entirely eliminate someone&amp;#x27;s income to be cheaper?&lt;p&gt;Is a total elimination better or worse than a reduction? I don&amp;#x27;t have an answer, and I see good arguments for each side...</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber starts self-driving car pickups in Pittsburgh</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/1386711/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kakabanga</author><text>This is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future.&lt;p&gt;Its business model was sacrificing someone&amp;#x27;s income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone.&lt;p&gt;Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chrismbarr</author><text>Except now those people who would normally be drivers now get zero dollars from Uber.  I do agree with you that this is the way for the future and I&amp;#x27;m all behind it, however doing this does cut out jobs (eventually) for a lot of drivers.  I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s necessarily a bad thing, and I suspect there will always be at least some human drivers.  I live in a small town and I really couldn&amp;#x27;t see them justifying the cost of this here.  Where I live there&amp;#x27;s currently one 1 or 2 uber drivers anyway, and they aren&amp;#x27;t always active and I just have to call the regular taxi company.</text></comment>