A future with self-driving cars makes more sense if all cars are taxis (of some form). Why leave your car stationary overnight (except perhaps to charge) when it can be out driving people around and earning money?

I'd like to see a system where one could purchase a guarantee that you'd get a car of a particular class to take you where you need to go within a given time (shorter time, higher cost; if you decide you can always wait 60mins for a ride from the time of booking the management of availability is far easier). Or, you'd just book journeys in advance - cheaper if you match logistical requirements. Then car ownership can be far more optimally managed.

Book a car in advance? Stone age!

Google Now will figure out where you need to be, and have a car waiting for you when you open the door.

Google Tomorrow will figure out what you needed to do at the remote location, do it for you, and avoid the need for a trip altogether.

Google The Day After Tomorrow gets rid of the need for you to exist at all!

It'll still want me to sit at home looking at ads. If it wants to do everything else for me I'm OK with that.

What makes you think you won't be calling a self driving car to pick you up on the Uber app?

I'd love for that to happen! But I always thought Uber/Lyft's equation worked only due to idle cars and underemployed humans, at least in a large part?

Sure, but if I own a self-driving car and I'm not currently using it, I wouldn't even have to get out of bed to send my car over to you and get some money :)