> I had to stop reading because the blog poster's level of thinking is really superficial.

And why would that bother you to the point of having to stop reading? Because if it causes rejection on an emotional level, I'm more inclined to think the discomfort is a consequence of it challenging your worldview. Which is likely one of driverless cars being the magical technological cure for all transportation problems. Especially since your suggestions, at least when formulated as briefly as this, are demonstrating quite a bit of superficial thinking in themselves:

> So instead of worrying about parking, you order a car, and it picks you up, and then you get dropped off. It drives off and services other customers. Then, when it comes time to get driven home, you order another car that comes and picks you up.

A the car is being shared without supervision, and somehow this will all magically go right, because vandalism doesn't exist in public spaces right now while we still have human supervision either, right? As Nathan Pyle once wrote about NYC public transport: "Beware the empty train car, it is empty for a reason."

http://also.kottke.org/misc/images/nyc-tips-etiquette.jpg

I mean, come on, the tragedy of the commons is ancient and well-established economic theory by now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

> You only pay for the car while it's driving you, not while it's sitting there doing nothing.

Except that in the scenario you suggested cars are never "doing nothing," they are constantly driving around. Even if they have no customers. You suggested we wouldn't bother with parking, remember? So we'll get into a scenario where swarms of empty driverless cars are clogging up the road waiting for customers.

And this can realistically happen if we don't pre-emptively regulate this, because we'd have competing different companies with swarms of cars who don't want to share their parking infrastructure for "resting" cars, so they'll use the shared free common infrastructure (the road). Tragedy of the commons again.

> And why would you go to Starbucks to pick up your own coffee? Why not send a self-driving car through the special self-driving car drivethru to pick up the coffee and return it to you? It could wireless transmit the order and payment details for you, and have a special slot for the coffee or food order.

People don't bother with food delivery most of the time right now, why would the presence of driverless cars change this? More importantly, why would sending an entire car for a coffee be a good thing? What you describe is a form of Jevon's Paradox, where increases efficiency (or in this case, convenience abstracting away (externalising) the real cost from the user) actually creates more wasteful use of a resource

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

But don't take my word for it, how about Mark Hallenbeck, who is the Director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)?

http://humantransit.org/2015/11/self-driving-cars-a-coming-c...

Or this Elseview publication on how automation likely increases reliance on cars, creating more traffic and energy consumption:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856415...

> Seriously, the article is really superficial thinking when it comes to self-driving cars.

This isn't an argument. You're just asserting that we shouldn't even bother reading it. You are basically shutting down opposing voices before they are being heard, because they go against your own preferred line of thinking. And I have serious issues with this attitude, since we have more than enough of that in [current year] as is.