Why Google's driverless, self-driving cars are really a big deal - some important reasons and thoughts

• Uber is worried about Google's cars, because driverless, self-driving cars are both a threat to and an opportunity for Uber. A startup using such automated cars could usurp Uber because its drivers - the software - doesn't need sleep and doesn't fall ill and doesn't go on a strike. There's opportunity here too - such automated cars could work 24x7x365, quickly and efficiently transporting men and goods where needed. The larger/wider the network, the lesser the distance/time when these cars run idle, and the higher the utilization that generates revenue. Game-changer is a small word.
• Apple [and also Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.] is worried about Google's cars because it knows that a significant proportion of any person's time is spent commuting inside a car. Google's cars, which won't have to be driven manually, naturally will keep the occupants occupied by serving them all sorts of context-sensitive/local/targeted ads and other content [audio/music, movies/videos, photos, news, etc.], and also by taking care of their emails, calendar, phone calls, searches, payments, and so on. Inside a Google car it'll naturally all be done by Google [and all of it will be monitored and recorded for analysis], thus tightly locking the owner(s) into Google's ecosystem and thus also progressively making Google's services better, more focused and overall more relevant/useful [and thus insurmountable after a point].