Cars and the Future
The problem is that traffic conditions can change rapidly; as of last year, for example, Google’s cars couldn’t handle a temporary stoplight. In other words, it’s not simply that Google needs to map the entire world in far more detail than they have previously — after all, the fact they have already done it shows just how capable the company is! — but rather that the maps need to be updated far more frequently than Google Street view ever needed to be
.. What I suspect is happening with TV is a little more nuanced than long-standing cable customers getting fed up with the cost of bundled TV and cutting the cord. Rather, young people, who have grown up in a very different entertainment environment than their parents — i.e. an online one — are simply not signing up in the first place. The decline, slight as it is, is the older generation that was raised on TV dying off.
.. Instead, the change is gradual. Netflix here, a bit of YouTube there. Or, in the case of cars, first hybrids and assisted parking, later electric vehicles that look and operate like normal cars, and the ability to take your hands off the wheel on the highway.
.. Meanwhile, a new generation that doesn’t understand why you would want to sit behind the wheel — much less own the damn thing — when you could instead be on your smartphone is coming of age. It’s a bit over-used at this point but the Ernest Hemingway quote about bankruptcy seems appropriate:
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”