> That is just like when loom machines took money away from weavers back in the 19th century, or computers took money away from typists/secretaries in the 20th century. We should carefully consider whether or not that is a net good for society.
I don't want to sound like a luddite, but each of those contributed to a consolidation of wealth that was largely offset by new jobs and new markets. How exactly do you think this is paying off here? Tech companies get to benefit, we know that, which sounds like a dead end. So it's ok that everyone else loses?
> I don't want to sound like a luddite
it's not a dirty word. being a luddite means caring about your professional and personal communities.
It's a loaded word by this point. The luddites smashed stocking frame
looms. At first those looms were human powered, and then water powered, and then steam engines came onto the scene. Steam engines where when people got wrecked. Those things were a menace! They'd crush limbs, amputate fingers, give you horrible RSI, fuck up your lungs with all the dirt in the air. The worst part is that children were better for it because they have little fingers which were better at fixing the machines. The late 16th Century didn't have the legal system in place that we have. OHSA, labor law, unions, liability, insurance. Those are all things that didn't exist back then but do now.
So these days, saying you're luddite doesn't mean you care about your professional and personal communities, it says you're anti-technology and anti-progress. If you want to say you care about your professional and personal communities, just say that.
Their arguments back then are not different at all to those today’s. Luddism was always about protecting jobs, a was against tech (self driving cars or automated looms) that would eliminate those jobs. Smashing a Waymo in SF is not much different from smashing up an automatic loom.
No, Luddists were always about protecting their own jobs.
Not really, it parallels the movements of today almost too perfectly:
The Luddites (1811–1816) were not merely destroying machines to stop technological progress; they were a broader, community-backed protest movement fighting for economic survival, fair wages, and against the erosion of their traditional, skilled way of life. While they were textile artisans at the core, the movement was fueled by widespread distress during the Napoleonic Wars and received support from local communities and even some sympathetic small-business owners.
> OHSA, labor law, unions, liability, insurance. Those are all things that didn't exist back then but do now.
what social movement could possibly have been an early progenitor of the modern labor rights movement?
The purely 'luddite' argument is rather obvious. Exploring the effects of that new path of money are somewhat more interesting to me. I believe that the cash flow will be much more concentrated, both by geography and cohort.
Even just taking it at face value that "the vast majority of the 35% of the fare that would have gone to the drivers will now go to '401k's" is interesting! Currently most drivers for Lyft/Uber are in the bottom 50%ile of wealth in the USA, and they are currently getting that 35% cut. The bottom 50% of the USA hold nearly no stocks at all. 50% of the S&P500 shares are owned by the wealthiest 1% of the USA.
Also, computers and looms were perhaps a bit different - the result of their automation was a product that actually cost less than their equivalent human labor could produce. Waymo currently charges more than Uber and Lyft, but still takes significant market share.
I do expect them to be cheaper eventually, but they'll also have an opportunity to establish market monopolies and then raise prices again. Sure, uber and lyft driver supply is obviously elastic, but possibly not quite as elastic in the very long run - it took a lot of capital to raise the current driver base for Uber+Lyft, and I'm not sure that can be repeated, say, five years after people stopped driving for them.
Of course people have to get new jobs as the world churns. But all of these other effects are interesting too! And, many, many people never really attain those new jobs. I don't think that's Waymo's "fault" as a moral judgment if the reality is that removing money from these jobs will lead to increase in squalor. It's just a pretty stark example of the rich getting richer.
are there examples of jobs going obsolete being a net harm to society, over a long time scale?
surely it's good to reduce the amount of menial labour being performed in the world
Midwives were replaced by the male-dominated medical industry, which initially raised infant mortality, nevermind women losing autonomy over birth.
Night soil collectors were replaced by partial sewage systems, which resulted in cholera and typhoid outbreaks.
Local butchers were replaced by meat packing plants. The Jungle tells us why this didn't go so well either.
In all three of those cases, we rushed to an incomplete solution before it was fully ready. In this case though, no one's banning humans from driving cars anytime soon, so that part of it will go okay.
The loss of manufacturing jobs and the movement of jobs in to services has been hard for the US, and is basically where MAGA came from, which I would say is a net harm to society. We wouldn't be arguing about Waymo right now if those Uber drivers had better jobs making things instead of being forced into gig work.
> The money will be funneled into 401K
Only the money from Alphabet employees who put money into their 401k will end up there. Other parts go to taxes paid by Alphabet and taxes paid by the employees. The vast majority though will go into Alphabet's coffers and be used to pay back investors and make big bets on the future (ideally). Sundar gets a bunch, as does Sergey and Brin. Waymo's taken more than a decade to get this far (and it's not quite there yet). DARPA jump-started this with their Grand Challenge in 2004, so I think the government does deserve a bunch of tax revenue off of this.
Index funds have a lot of alphabet these days, so most 401ks are heavily vested in it. Future productivity increases are paying for our retirements one way prove other, especially since the birth rate is tanking.