Following up on this week’s post about Google perhaps getting into the driverless-taxi business, here’s the opening of a Matthew Yglesias Slate piece warning that regulation might stymie the emergence of this autonomous sector:
“Google’s eye-popping $258 million investment in the car-hailing app company Uber made headlines last week. It’s the search giant’s biggest-ever venture capital investment, and it gives a much-discussed but rather small-scale company a delirious $3.5 billion valuation. But so far, the commentary on the deal—which has been mostly focused on bubble speculation and startup mania—has missed the real story.
Google’s interest in Uber is likely connected to their ongoing investments in driverless or autonomous cars, and it shows that the potential of this technology is much greater than is commonly realized. By the same token, however, the stakes in ongoing regulatory battles between tech startups and taxi regulators are higher than most people know. This is not just the future of yuppies getting a ride home from the bar. It’s a set of issues that has the potential to radically remake the American landscape.
But to get there, regulators would have to want cheaper and better taxi service. Current trends make it unclear that they do.”
Tags: Matthew Yglesias