Why does the Uber model work?

Convenience for people with smartphones who visit or live in cities around the world.

First, it's cheaper than regular taxis because regular people use their own cars and choose to drive or not any time they have available wherever they are on earth. And they are likely paid less than regular taxi drivers but they choose to do this (any time they want to make a little money) 24 hours a day 7 days a week around the world (wherever it is legal to do so).

So, it is convenient for the drivers to make money anytime they want to. And it is convenient for people who know how to use cellphones (mostly people under 50 years old). I don't use UBER but my children do when I visit them so I have ridden in Uber Cars even though my wife and I don't have the APP on our cell phones.

Where have I ridden in Uber taxis?

Los Angeles (deep in the city while visiting one of our very successful daughters and her husband there. We went to a very good Italian Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles.

Disneyland: If you stay outside of Disneyland sometimes the shuttles take more time than you want to especially if you leave Disneland very late at night returning to your Hotel. So then, it is convenient to take an UBER which one of my children again summoned with an APP on their smartphone. Also, you can see where the car is on a map coming to you. There is no ambiguity how close a car is to you or it's location from the time that car decides to take you (all of you) as a rider or riders.

However, now Uber was designed not just for the convenience of drivers and riders it was also designed for the convenience of stock holders.

So, this is where self-driving Taxis come into the picture. Because Self driving taxis are cheaper to operate than human driven taxis which is how people will choose (sometimes) non-human driven taxis or self driving taxis around the world. It will be cheaper (if not safer) in many situations.

Because you will not be able to save yourselves from death if anything goes wrong with the self driving taxis. It will be like riding in a train or plane only with no driver at all. So, if anything goes wrong you are just dead or maimed and that's all.

I likely(my wife and I) likely will never chose to ride in a completely self driving vehicle without steering wheel or manual brakes. (However, that does not mean our children won't coax us into one in some emergency situation like going to an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles or from our hotel to Disneyland in Anaheim with our children. However, we likely would never choose to summon a driverless car ourselves without one or more of our children doing it just for safety reasons alone.