Nearly a decade after the World Economic Forum floated its now-notorious vision of a future in which youll own nothing and supposedly be happy, the contours of that world are beginning to emerge in ways that should give every freedom-minded American pause.
According to Western Journal, the WEF quietly removed that article after a wave of public outrage, but the underlying idea has never truly disappeared. Instead, it has resurfaced in more subtle, technocratic forms, embedded in business models and long-term corporate strategies that shift ownership away from individuals and toward large institutions. Nowhere is this trend more visible than in the rapidly evolving world of autonomous vehicles, where the promise of convenience masks a deeper question about who will control the basic tools of everyday life.
In a series of recent interviews, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has laid out a vision for how driverless technology could reshape transportation in the United States. He has described a future in which ordinary Americans no longer own their own cars but instead tap into fleets of self-driving vehicles owned by corporations and financial giants, summoning rides through an app whenever they need to move from place to place.
The concept is not entirely new; for years, futurists and Silicon Valley evangelists have promised a world where human drivers are obsolete. In their telling, cars equipped with cameras, sensors, and sophisticated software would glide through city streets and suburban neighborhoods, ferrying passengers with machine-like precision and eliminating the hassles of driving, parking, and maintaining a personal vehicle.
What once sounded like science fiction has, in recent years, taken on a distinctly practical form. In October 2020, Googles autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Waymo, opened its driverless car service to the general public, marking a significant milestone in the commercialization of this technology.
Other major players quickly followed suit, each adding its own twist to the emerging ecosystem of automated mobility. Tesla has rolled out self-driving features for select models, while Amazons Zoox vehicles have begun transporting passengers along the Las Vegas Strip, turning a once-futuristic concept into a visible, everyday reality for tourists and residents alike.
The latest entrant in this race is Teslas new line of autonomous Cybercabs, which have begun rolling off the assembly line. These vehicles, expected to be available to consumers and fleets in the near future, are designed without a steering wheel or control pedals, a symbolic and literal removal of human control from the driving experience.
Yet the most consequential development may not be the technology itself, but the business model that will govern its use. Uber, the ridesharing behemoth that already dominates urban transportation in many cities, has announced partnerships with a range of autonomous firms, including Lucid, Nuro, Waymo, and others, with the explicit goal of integrating self-driving services into its vast global platform.
This is where the story shifts from innovation to ideology, from convenience to control. At the recent Abundance360 Summit in Los Angeles, Khosrowshahi was pressed on how he envisions the rollout of autonomous vehicles and what it will mean for the structure of transportation in the years ahead.
There isnt going to be this kind of binary outcome, which is either all autonomous or no autonomous, he said, emphasizing that the transition will be gradual rather than abrupt. Its going to develop in a hybrid way. And youre going to have fleets in cities that consist of some autonomous vehicles and then many human-driven vehicles as well.
Khosrowshahi stressed that Uber is deeply committed to this transformation and is already heavily invested in the autonomous space. He noted that the company currently has 20 partners working on driverless technology and that Uber intends to have autonomous vehicles operating in 15 cities by the end of the year, a remarkably aggressive timeline for such a disruptive shift.
And by 2029, he said, we think that we will facilitate more autonomous and robotaxi rides than anyone else in the world. That projection, if realized, would make Uber not merely a participant in the autonomous revolution but one of its primary gatekeepers, controlling access to a core element of daily life for millions.
Pressed further on what this would mean for traditional car ownership, Khosrowshahi was unusually candid about the endgame. In response to a question about the costs associated with owning a vehicle, he said, I think ultimately its just not going to make sense for you to own your own car, a statement that aligns neatly with the WEFs earlier youll own nothing narrative.
In Khosrowshahis preferred future, the average citizen does not own the car he or she uses; corporations do. This is not a vague, theoretical musing but a concrete plan, and the Uber chief executive has been explicit about how he expects the ownership structure to evolve as the technology matures.
He explained that, in the near term, Uber itself will own many of these self-driving vehicles, building out its own autonomous fleet to serve its customer base. Over time, however, he envisions a model in which financial players, you know, the Blackstones of the world own large fleets of cars that give a 9% yield, turning transportation into yet another asset class for Wall Street.
That reference is not incidental. Blackstone has become infamous in recent years for buying up thousands of single-family homes across the United States and converting them into rental properties, contributing to a housing market in which more Americans are tenants rather than homeowners. The prospect of the same financial giants owning the cars we rely on every day raises obvious concerns about concentration of power and the erosion of individual ownership.
Beyond ownership, the rise of autonomous vehicles poses a serious threat to employment for millions of workers. Today, countless Americans earn their living behind the wheel, driving cars, trucks, buses, and delivery vehicles, and for many, these jobs are a path to the middle class that does not require a college degree.
Researchers and policymakers have debated the scale of the disruption for years, with estimates ranging from modest displacement to seismic upheaval in the labor market. While the exact numbers remain uncertain, the underlying reality is clear: if machines take over driving, a vast number of human drivers will eventually be pushed aside.
Khosrowshahi has not ignored this issue, but his answers have done little to reassure those whose livelihoods are at stake. Several months ago, at the All-In Summit, he was asked directly about the potential for job losses tied to autonomous vehicles and the broader wave of artificial intelligence.
He acknowledged the gravity of the problem, saying, Its a big issue for AI in general and job displacement. For Uber specifically, he argued that at least over the next five years, the introduction of robot cars onto the platform would not displace human drivers because the company is growing so quickly that it can very easily take that demand.
Yet when he looked further into the future, his tone shifted from confident to uncertain. Khosrowshahi admitted, I think 10-15 years from now this is going to be a real issue and I dont have a neat answer for it, a striking confession from a man helping to engineer the very disruption he cannot explain away.
That admission should not be brushed aside. The architects of this new transportation regime understand that their plans could trigger mass upheaval in the labor market and fundamentally alter how Americans live and work, yet they are moving forward without a clear plan for those who will be left behind.
For some observers, the more subtle danger lies not in job losses but in the quiet reordering of ownership and control. On the surface, turning transportation into a service may sound attractive: no more repair bills, no more insurance premiums, no more circling the block in search of a parking space, just a quick tap on an app and a car appears.
The problem emerges when one considers what it means to hand over such a critical aspect of daily life to a handful of massive corporations. Today, transportation is largely decentralized and individually controlled; most people decide for themselves where to go, when to leave, and how to get there, with minimal interference from third parties.
In a world where companies like Google, Uber, and Blackstone own the vehicles and control the platforms that dispatch them, those decisions could increasingly be made by corporate algorithms rather than individual citizens. After all, as Khosrowshahis own comments make clear, they would own the vehicles, not you, and ownership brings with it the power to set rules and impose conditions.
Recent history offers a sobering preview of how such power might be used. Social media giants have already demonstrated a willingness to shape public discourse through Big Tech Censorship, banning certain personalities, suppressing disfavored content, and demonetizing viewpoints that clash with progressive orthodoxy.
Is it really so far-fetched to imagine similar tactics applied to transportation, especially in an era when climate policy, ESG mandates, and political polarization are increasingly driving corporate behavior? Could people be denied access to rides based on their political beliefs or statements they have made on social media, something that has already occurred in other sectors of the digital economy?
Could access to transportation be rationed or restricted in the name of fighting climate change, with ESG scores or corporate social credit systems used to justify limits on travel based on an individuals carbon footprint? Could the political winds of the day lead platforms to quietly block rides to a firearms store, a church, or a particular political rally, effectively weaponizing mobility against disfavored causes?
The original youll own nothing article from the World Economic Forum was framed as a benign vision of an economy where goods and assets are increasingly provided as services rather than sold directly to consumers. Its authors portrayed this shift as efficient, sustainable, and even liberating, downplaying the loss of personal ownership in favor of supposed collective benefits.
The public backlash to that article was swift and intense, precisely because many people instinctively understood what was at stake. The same instinct should guide our response to the future sketched by Ubers CEO, in which the car in your driveway is replaced by a vehicle owned by a distant corporation and dispatched at its discretion.
When someone else owns the thing in question, they make the rules, not you. For conservatives who value individual liberty, private property, and decentralized decision-making, that is not a trivial detail but the heart of the matter, and it is why the march toward a youll own nothing transportation system deserves far more scrutiny than it is currently receiving.
Login