I think your article also highlights the damaging ways that Uber/Lyft have affected the sector. What used to be a profitable business has been destroyed by another that loses money hand over fist. Then, when a viable competitor comes along (self-driving taxis), they can't charge enough to generate profit.

Be interesting (albeit probably not helpful) to take Uber out of the equation and compare Waymo pricing with traditional taxis and see if there would have been a path forward.

(I'm guessing no - my gut says that if the market were still dominated by traditional taxis, the self-driving folks would have run the numbers and concluded the market just isn't big enough to justify the R&D costs)