Coke

just google things that have dropped in price. there's been a few

capitalism has had some examples of lowering costs in many sectors but also had increasing costs in other sectors. it isn't always an increase though.

basically they're going to try to maximize profit so they're going to do a business calculation. if there is a segment of the population, (lets say 30% of people for example) don't order an uber or food delivery because of the costs, and they can cut their costs by 40% per delivery by making cars self driving, they might lower costs for food delivery by $9 to get that 30% of people that are too price sensitive to use their service to become customers. i for one am one of those people that almost NEVER orders food delivery or ubers solely because of the cost. but if it went from $22 to $13 i might consider it. that's just an example and im making up numbers to demonstrate the point. there's always a business calculation when it comes to whether they lower costs or not. sometimes lower cost increases profit. when businesses make a new product or service usually when it's new that service is really expensive, and their main goal is cutting the cost so they can sell to the average consumer and have a huge market share rather than just selling to an elite few.

happens

walkabout cities dont really work with big outer neighborhoods and suburbs with single family homes on large plots of land, and those necessitate cars. personally i like living in the suburbs. that being said, if enough people want walkable cities they can build them. i personally prefer 15 minute drives more than 15 minute walks tho, lol.

well both can be true at once. a business that hires at $40 per employee with 10 employees is going to have to charge more than a business that hires $20 per employee with 10 employees, but regardless both are gonna to charge whatever is going to maximize their profits

i mean they're gonna charge whatever makes them the most profit regardless

they'll charge whatever's most profitable but if two self driving transportation companies are in competition with each other and they both want to dominate the market, one might set their prices lower than the other to steal the market share. the only way that wouldn't happen is with two monopolies agreeing to not undercut each other, which happens. but in general when a company has lower operational costs their goods will cost less too.

how would you shift suburbs into walkabout cities and neighborhoods? personally i live in a suburb and i like it. but assuming they do suck, how would you transition already created suburbs into a walkable city? personally i think having the option to live in a suburb and being able to own your own car or in the future rent a self driving car would be preferred to having to live in a city.

i agree it's a valid concern. but i don't think the solution to not getting a reduction in work hours is to halt technological progress. i personally like andrew yangs idea. instead of halting progress we put a tax on the robots that replace our jobs and use the money generated to give back to the people. andrew yang supported a universal basic income program. there's a couple routes we can go. one is to halt the technological progress and keep the jobs that are currently here. that is status quo and personally it's not the worse outcome, but it's also not the best outcome. i'd rate it average, just staying where we are. (average scenario)

there's option number 2. we allow the technological progress but don't put any new taxes or regulations in place to let the new technological progress benefit the people. people lose their jobs and are not subsidized after losing their jobs and end up jobless, with no money, worse off than they were, while the rich tech people take even more profit than they've ever made before. goods will be produced at a much cheaper and more rapid rate, but less people will be able to afford their or basic living on their own. goods might also become cheaper because of the increase in supply and the lower cost of goods, but it doesn't make up for the amount of money or meaning lost in people's lives where they're jobless and have no source of income. (worst case scenario)

and then there's option 3, we allow the technological progress, but we regulate it and put taxes on the companies and corporations that profit from the new automation and machines. the money goes to the corporations partially, but a large chunk of it also goes to the people. in this scenario goods are produced cheaper, people that lose their jobs don't lose as much value because they still get compensated through the taxing and spreading of wealth, and jobs that are repetitive and menial end up getting done by robots while more meaningful jobs that robots can't do continue to be done by humans. (best case scenario)

personally i like option 3. i'd love to see self driving cars replace ubers, truck drivers, etc. i'd love to see fast food workers replaced by machines. all those shitty jobs that pay shit anyway and nobody wants to do get replaced by robots, and the people that lose those jobs still get compensated so they have a salary to live on.

what we've been doing is option 2, which is probably the worst case scenario. we need to move to option 3. more productivity is always good, we just need to spread the gains of our productivity to the people. you should look up andrew yang if you want to know more about this type of solution. the fact is though it's not going to come by just trusting to corporations to tax themselves and spread their gains amongst the people, we need to elect someone that will enforce it. just like nobody would pay taxes in general if they didn't have to.

we have public transit in the US, just not in low density suburban areas. because you can't walk to a bus stop in the suburbs. it's too far. you can't just "invest" in that, at least not in an economically feasible way either. also there's just annoyances, like a train can't park in a parking lot. there's a lot more walking to do. if public transit were this magical solution we would've already done it.

i agree with you they would try to profit more, (they're a business so of course). but i think lowering operational costs allows them to lower their prices too, while also profiting more. we need a good way to ensure monopolies don't just all agree to set a standard price and not compete with each other, i haven't thought of one yet except outright monopoly busting. but i do think in general lowering costs to create goods allows goods to be cheaper especially when they're facing and trying to undercut other competitors/competition.