As Lyft, the ride-sharing company, prepares to go public, it announces its intention to kill personal car ownership, boasting that some 300,000 people have already kicked the car habit thanks to Lyft. What does America gain and lose in the transportation as a service economy?
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Lyft Goes Public: Hopes to Speed the Death of Personal Car Ownership
As Lyft, the ride-sharing company, prepares to go public, it announces its intention to kill personal car ownership, boasting that some 300,000 people have already kicked the car habit thanks to Lyft. What does America gain and lose in the transportation as a service economy?
8 replies on “Lyft Goes Public: Hopes to Speed the Death of Personal Car Ownership”
Great show, guys. Bill may “lament” the loss of this “training”, but I think it is absolutely catastrophic to the American soul. Where else do upcoming generations get that sort of learning event? Changing their iPhone battery?
Do any of you recall reading “The City and the Stars” by Arthur C. Clarke? That kind of split in humanity, between the comfortable, safe, and incompetent city folk and the exterior, “low-end”, but very self-sufficient and capable people-who-don’t-live-in-the-city is coming soon to a theater near you. On your doorsteps, actually.
For what it’s worth, when I ran out of gas at 3 in the morning, it was on a 13-year-old BMW motorcycle, in the middle of central Florida on my way from Hollywood, FL to Ft. Worth, Texas. A kind farmer found me, took pity upon me, and got me some fuel. After I’d pushed the 550-pound bike for about five miles along the sandy edges of the road.
I love and embrace new technology, but I always feel the need for speed. Uber is probably cheaper than renting a car, but I crave the freedom to go where I want, when I want and enjoy the drive as much as I enjoy the destination. My 15 year old grandson plays a car driving game for hours on his gaming station. He’s 15. I wonder if he will take drivers ed.
Cars have been replaced by technolgy for the new generation. The cell phone and its assortment of apps have replaced the desire to travel and meet others in person. This will coinside with a decline in the ability of the current generation to develop quality interpersonal skills allowing them to offend and be offended by every third word that is actually spoken between two humans when the have a chance meeting out in the world.
My wife and I have become very conscious of the phone addiction. We now frequently turn our phones off, especially when we are out to dinner. We need to be careful as we have aging parents that need attention so we have learned to use the DND features that only allows calls from certain numbers.
My daughter and her friends have started to do this as well. But I think they are exceptions as they are all pretty outgoing.
Bitchin Camero!
Bill – it’s 3am, running out of gas, 900 miles from home and you have NO CELLPHONE. A learning experience indeed.
My daughter has had much less taste of freedom than I did.
My parents had a few rules wrt cars. No Drinking and Driving. You need gas, figure out how to pay for it. You will be home by a certain time.
That leaves a lot of room for teenage guys.
Many of my daughter’s friends didn’t get their driving permits until 18. I didn’t understand.
My niece was almost 20 when she got hers. It blew my mind anyone would wait one extra second than mandated… haha
went to college with a guy who got his liscense at 21. He was what I call a hallelujah chauffeur. If you got where you were going you said hallelujah and made the appropriate sacrifices for your safe delivery.