Waymos need to be cheap and convenient to get business (they are a service), and they need to be safer to avoid litigation and social/political problems. Their business interests are aligned with both.

So why can't we prefer robot vehicles on the basis of safety and convenience?

If you want to make it about centralization, needing to pay big money for a personal vehicle (most of which through centralized dealers), register it with the state and an insurance company, requiring a government license, paying for insurance/registration in perpetuity, having to park it in special parking zones -- that's as centralized and locked down as it gets.

Waymo’s cars are, statistically, an order of magnitude safer than human-driven cars.

It sounds like your real MO is that you think SV tech doesn’t care about safety or its customers… which is fine, I guess, but it’s muddying the point you were trying to make as your comment kind of devolved into a strange rant.

For people outside the tech bubble, having strangers constantly market a product for a company they don't even work for as if it's their own spontaneous, original premise is "strange".

Where do you see that?

if an animal runs into the road and is hit by a vehicle, as long as the driver safely stops after, i don’t think the driver is generally charged after afaik

The comment is responding to a premise made regarding a person being hit by a car--which believe it or not--has legal ramifications. And we don't have to think about it regarding the pet, civil liability is still in play for them too.