You don't buy a 747 to fly across the country do you? No, you buy a ticket from Southwest or another carrier.

Kids will one day laugh at how we used to buy vehicles instead of rent them by the miles. "Auto loans?!?" The horror!

If I had a self-driving car and some time on my hands, I'd get rid of my home and be in that thing practically 24/7, seeing the land and enjoying having it drive me around. No way I would rent in that situation. I'd definitely buy. There will be a whole class of similar nomads who will spring up once it becomes truly viable.

The future is not one-size-fits-all. Just because Uber execs and investors are blathering about how personal car ownership will go away (meaning they will own everything, how convenient) doesn't mean it actually will happen that way.

This is something I never thought about. What an interesting shift it would be if remote workers became much more nomadic than most are now.

Companies that need to use planes a lot do sometimes buy their own (e.g. FedEx does not simply buy tickets from Southwest). Ordinary folks don't own planes because they don't fly around everywhere — they mostly drive.

We already have taxis, Uber and rental cars. People still seem to be buying cars even at their high price. Why do you think that is?

Because there is no self-driving option. If there is, and the price of rides plummets (no driver = cheap, all electric = even cheaper), it no longer behooves you to tie up so much capital in a vehicle you own.

Think how much consumer excess would occur from 300 million people not having to buy a vehicle outright.

And anyone driving their own car needs to pay for parking, plus for full insurance, registration and so on. Free street parking will gradually disappear and off-street parking is not going to get any cheaper.

> And anyone driving their own car needs to pay for parking, plus for full insurance, registration and so on.

Those costs don't go away just because you're renting. In the same way property taxes don't disappear just because you aren't paying them directly in a leased apartment.

> Free street parking will gradually disappear and off-street parking is not going to get any cheaper.

This applies to maybe 10% of the population. And I feel like that's pretty generous. You probably haven't seen much of the US outside of the North East if you think that's even remotely plausible.