1. Google isn't going to be a player in personal mobility. Their technology is no more up to the task than Tesla's or anyone else's. Expect to see a few incremental improvements from all major automobile manufacturers in open-road autonomy, but nothing that's going to enable a driverless taxicab or anything like it.
2. Webvan isn't a good comparison for Uber, except in that it's dead. The actual concept behind Webvan was a good one and is now offered by many, many companies. Had it not been founded when it was, it's likely it could have raised a few more rounds, learned the lessons it needed to, and become profitable. There's nothing about Uber that's novel or interesting; from the end user's perspective, it's no different from Flywheel, which is nothing but the pre-Internet telephone-dispatched taxicab company with a new communication frontend. The only thing Uber has going for it is a structure that tries (and is now failing) to bypass regulation. Without that, it's just another taxi service.
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