Cars are large, depreciating assets that spend the vast majority of their product lifecycle doing nothing. Conversely, metropolitan areas have to dedicate up to half their available space to empty blacktop storing these unused assets that sit around doing nothing.
The sooner we solve on-demand transportation at scale without requiring a human driver the sooner we can move away from this colossal degree of waste.
All this tech we have is large, depreciating assets yet it still keeps happening. Humans are a large depreciating asset to the elite, lets hope they don't get tired of us anytime soon and replace us with AI and robotic servants...
That's an Ayn Rand novel, not real life; if you somehow had all the money in the country and fired everyone (i.e. stopped trading with them) then by definition you're not rich because the ability to trade with people is what being rich is.
Instead you've created two economies, one with just you and one with all of them, and the other one's better because it has more people.
Automation breeds new job creation and QoL improvements.
Coming closer to a post-scarcity society with little waste would be considered a boon, not dystopia. The capitalist idea that your worth is tied to how many hours you work is fading; the newer generations are already calling for work reform.
The sooner we solve on-demand transportation at scale without requiring a human driver the sooner we can move away from this colossal degree of waste.