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Opinion: Owning a Car Will Soon Be as Quaint as Owning a Horse
I will die before I buy another car. I don't say that because I am particularly old or sick, but because I am at the front end of one of the next major secular trends in tech. Owning a car will soon be like owning a horse — a quaint hobby, an interesting rarity and a cool thing to take out for a spin on the weekend.
Before you object, let me be clear: I will drive in cars until I die. But the concept of actually purchasing, maintaining, insuring and garaging an automobile in the next few decades? Finished.
[...] It's obviously an easier decision if you live near a major metropolitan area, like I do, where the alternatives — cars and then car pools and then bikes and now scooters — are myriad. (Why, by the way, this is a revolution led by private companies instead of public transportation is an important topic for another day.) In other countries, often with denser populations, there are even more ideas bubbling up, from auto-rickshaws and motorbike taxis to new bus services.
Obviously, the biggest change will be the advent of truly autonomous vehicles, which are still years or even decades in the future. But in the meantime I am going to lean into this future all I can, and will chronicle the efforts over the next year, its costs and its benefits and how I get there. Or not.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:32PM
Welcome Mr/Mrs millennial who lives in a big city. Your life does not necessarily reflect the lives of people living outside your big city. You should get out and travel more. Really.
The time when an Uber/Lyft type service can remove the need for rural people owning cars, trucks and other vehicles is very, very far away. More than any of our lifetimes. Sure, big cities will see car ownership drop - just like they have already. But outside the high density big cities, this trend is not present and will not come for a very long time.