Google To Compete With Uber, Uber To Explore Autonomous Transportation

An anonymous reader writes: Bloomberg breaks news that Uber has a major new competitor in ridesharing: Google. According to the report, Google has informed Uber's board of directors of this development, and shown them screenshots of a ride-sharing app currently being tested by employees. Why did Google share this information with Uber? Because they've heavily invested in Uber, and Google's David Drummond, chief legal officer and senior VP of corporate development, is on Uber's board. Of course, a Google ride-sharing service would fit perfectly with their project to build and develop autonomous vehicles. This could be very bad news for Uber (not to mention other ride-sharing services) because they rely heavily on Google's mapping data. That is, unless Uber beats them to it. Uber today announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to develop, among other things, "autonomy technology." A source told TechCrunch that Uber went on a hiring spree and "cleaned out" the National Robotics Engineering Center, a research organization affiliated with CMU.

Comments

Re:Libertarian view

[Tom]

I've been following with interest the debate about government-regulated taxis versus free-market Uber.

One is real and the other one is a lie. There is no such thing as a free market. It's a theory the same way that in physics class you learn Newton mechanics without friction and air resistance and other distracting details.

But in the real world, these things exist. In the real world, no market outside simulations satisfies all the criteria of a free market. However, people really like the idea, so companies like Uber ride on the wave of sympathy.

Many of the arguments against Uber are bullshit, I will grant you that. However, you forget one very important thing: Uber enters a market dominated and defined by government-regulation. Do not for one second believe that the market would look the same if it had only Uber. Look to any country without government regulation on taxis for an idea of what it would be like. Uber has to behave and satisfy certain standards because people are used to them because they've always had them, thanks to government regulation.