alt Hacker NewsWaymo Premier
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$30/mo is slightly mind boggling for this.
I’ve enjoyed the ~70 or so Waymo rides I have taken but to me Waymo, Uber, and Lyft are methods of last resort.
My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation and for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.
Cash back is huge for people expensing rides. “Spend company money on us, and take your personal rides every once in a while for free.”
Same model as airlines.
It will pay for itself if you spend >300$ per month. I personally wish Waymo have a 399$ per month subscription that give 2 free ride per day so I don't need to own a car just for work.
> Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching
> Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand.
> Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
It sounds like when Waymo expands to a new city for the first time, the new potential customers would have a worse experience if there were a high enough volume of riders from other cities who participate in this program? I guess the assumption is that there won't be enough people subscribing who are traveling in other cities at a given time, but I'd also imagine that rolling out to a new city would start with smaller numbers of cars and scaling up, and it seems a bit odd to potentially set things up in a way that might result in people considering trying it but then seeing long wait times and deciding it's not worth it.
I wonder how the subscription would respond to a person's area being blocked off.
There construction happening a block down the road from me. As part of the work, the rightmost lane is often blocked during the day (in between rush hours), so that things like concrete pumping can take place. The lane block starts just before where I live.
Around the same time, I noticed that when I would try to take Waymo (which I used to get to PT), I'd be told that things are busy and rides are paused. Recently, I've noticed that if I'm at work (or the PT place) and I want to take a Waymo back home, I'm told "Can't get to that spot right now".
If I had Waymo Premier, I wonder how hard it would be to get a refund on my subscription.
The above talks about a complete block (or, a complete-enough block) to using the service, but what about a major impediment? For example, let's say I travel regularly, and use Waymo to get to/from San Jose airport. Waymo's been disabling highway routes, which for me equates to 20-minute (or more) travel-time increase from home to airport. Would that be enough to qualify for a refund on the subscription?
One of two ways - subscriptions or ads. Waymo chose the former.
I'd be more interested in a $29/month surcharge if Waymo weren't already significantly more expensive than Uber/Lyft to begin with.
I used Waymo about 10 times in Austin - it was great. I wish they'd accelerate the rollout to other cities. I wonder what the major technical hurdles are for launching in a new city?
> Waymo Premier costs $29.99 per month and will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
> Waymo Premier is a new invite-only membership program built for those who rely on us most. For a monthly fee, members gain access to a suite of exclusive benefits designed to make their journey more seamless and rewarding:
Priority Pickups: Skip the line with prioritized matching
Ride Savings: Earn 10% Waymo Cash back on every trip, and even more during busy times.
Early Access: Be among the first to experience Waymo in new cities, as we expand.
Flexible Cancellations: Peace of mind with up to five free cancellations per month.
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ok so just amazon prime for waymo. its alright but i feel like they had the chance to go REALLY high end with like a $300/month plan that people will still pay for because supply is so limited. instead they went mass consumer with a name like "Premier". eh.
(sorry waymo person reading this i know what its like to name a thing and regret it)
Introducing more tiers is a key step in enshitification process because it enables neat sleight of hand tricks. You're not making the old tier slower, you're just giving the new tier priority....which has the effect of...yes
What I want is a way to rent a car for an hour or two, so that I can leave shopping items or child seats in the car while making stops around town.
I’m dying to take a Waymo. Glad to see them trying to build sustainable revenue models.
I hate the state of the car-dependent American urban fabric and would love to see public transport everywhere (trains > AVs). But Waymo/AVs can meet people where they are (personal vehicles) and deliver a halfway decent solution (distributed, on demand, cheap transport without human labor).
Hmm, so for $30 a month you basically get 10% cash back. There's some break even point here if you use Waymo enough. I think in SF, this would make a lot of sense, especially since there are so many Waymos up there to begin with. In South Bay though, if you don't have a car you're pretty much cooked.
Zero value. I don't get it.
Priority Pickups: The only ostensible value. I've never waited more than 5 minutes for a car. $360 a year to save a couple minute?
Ride Savings: Pay to save money.
Early Access: Zero value.
Flexible Cancellations: Pay to save money.
This caught my eye:
> I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to
I’m wondering what we lose as a society if people never have to be in even a mildly uncomfortable situation. There’s a book called The Comfort Crisis about this topic.
EDIT: The full quote is “I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to.”
In her quote she chose to separate safety and having a conversation with a stranger as two separate issues.
Thus the enshittification begins. Charge a fee for "premium" features -> features degrade over time -> drop features for non-subscribers -> subscription required for access at all, plus you get to pay the fee to go somewhere.
I'm SO tired of subscription services that only offer the opportunity to buy more stuff.
- Doordash wants you to subscribe
- AMC movies want you to subscribe
- Now Waymo wants you to subscribe
[dead]
> “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to."
I recognize that this is a luxury product but I kind of laughed out loud at this testimonial. The amount of privilege you need to have to grow up and live in *Arizona* without ever learning how to drive is insane.
Premier? How outdated. Should have named it "Waymo Supreme" for that extra generational cringe.
What’s up with the fake review?
> I get privacy, time back, …
Yea you get "privacy" in a car kitted with the most advanced 360 degree camera system in the interior and exterior of the vehicle. Waymo PR team unhinged
Waymo will never be a serious option until they fix the insane surge pricing. And yes, they're working on it.
> “I never got my driver's license, and I rely on Waymo to commute to an office every day," said Sarah Paige Roland, a Waymo rider in Phoenix. "I get privacy, time back, a safe ride, and I'm not obligated to talk to someone that I don't want to talk to. Adding cash back and priority pickups on top of that makes Premier a no-brainer for someone like me."
I get what they're trying to say, but their pitch boils down to: "use waymo if youre too stupid to get a DL and too antisocial to talk to people". Bit rough. They really could have done a lot better with this PR piece lol.
If Waymo Premier includes an [EVASIVE MANEUVERS] button on the infotainment screen I'm in.
I had a Uber driver block my Waymo at an intersection in SF some months ago just to be an asshole. Apparently some other people have been attacked and robbed while in a Waymo.
Waymo should treat it like a security flaw that anyone can stop your car and there's nothing you can do about it.