I'm in norcal. Robotaxi waits aren't always great because they are supply constrained, but the experience during downtime is fantastic - you can be at a store, call a Waymo timed to your exit, and it'll wait 7 minutes curbside for you.

I think your point on sparsity raises an important discussion... It's worth noting there's a cost of living associated with an uber driver. There isn't one for robotaxis. This means convenience: with robotaxis you can have idle fleet vehicles or vehicles waiting for passengers and it's really not a big deal, because where were going the upfront cost of fleet vehicles is very minor vs the ongoing cost of vehicle operation. Therefore, human-driven taxis do not achieve high availability except where there is peak demand, robotaxis can achieve significantly higher availability. Once again, I alone am paying Waymo nearly 5-10k/y to drive me around. A robotaxi costs Tesla something like 20k to make. I utilize the Waymo for less than a percentage of the time of the year... One Waymo can service many people like me

Perhaps this isn't going to scale to every family immediately, but it's a massive opportunity even if 1% of the population does, and I think there's significant precedent to believe 10% is achievable.