Last year, Waymo promised that by the end of 2018 they'd have an operational public robotaxi service. Geofenced over a fairly small area, but still real. Such promises led to predictions like this.
It didn't happen, though they kinda sorta tried to pretend it did for PR purposes. Journalists still ran the press releases about how they were offering a "commercial self-driving service." They removed NDA obligations from their approved passenger list, so they can talk about their experiences, but that's about it. They still have at least one "safety driver" (and often two professionals, it seems). It's still not open to the public, just an existing list of "early riders."
As I keep saying, the technology is neato. It works surprisingly well! Wow that's neat!
People just underestimate how good it has to be before it's actually useful.
