we have public transit in the US, just not in low density suburban areas. because you can't walk to a bus stop in the suburbs. it's too far. you can't just "invest" in that, at least not in an economically feasible way either. also there's just annoyances, like a train can't park in a parking lot. there's a lot more walking to do. if public transit were this magical solution we would've already done it.

basically not having to pay delivery drivers, the work itself is cheaper, so they can lower costs. a lot of times high costs is due to operational costs which includes employees and if operational costs are brought down prices on things like doordash would go down too.

well the theory of how self driving cars would eventually become is if you have an app that can order a self driving vehicle, the closest one to you will be there for you. you can set the time you need it ready by and it will be there. we kinda already do that now with transportation apps, but with self driving cars i think it would be more efficient. idk. i guess owning, driving, and parking your own car will probably always be a little faster because its in the parking lot of your store or of your house right where you left it, but it wouldn't be that much faster.

i agree it's a valid concern. but i don't think the solution to not getting a reduction in work hours is to halt technological progress. i personally like andrew yangs idea. instead of halting progress we put a tax on the robots that replace our jobs and use the money generated to give back to the people. andrew yang supported a universal basic income program. there's a couple routes we can go. one is to halt the technological progress and keep the jobs that are currently here. that is status quo and personally it's not the worse outcome, but it's also not the best outcome. i'd rate it average, just staying where we are. (average scenario)

there's option number 2. we allow the technological progress but don't put any new taxes or regulations in place to let the new technological progress benefit the people. people lose their jobs and are not subsidized after losing their jobs and end up jobless, with no money, worse off than they were, while the rich tech people take even more profit than they've ever made before. goods will be produced at a much cheaper and more rapid rate, but less people will be able to afford their or basic living on their own. goods might also become cheaper because of the increase in supply and the lower cost of goods, but it doesn't make up for the amount of money or meaning lost in people's lives where they're jobless and have no source of income. (worst case scenario)

and then there's option 3, we allow the technological progress, but we regulate it and put taxes on the companies and corporations that profit from the new automation and machines. the money goes to the corporations partially, but a large chunk of it also goes to the people. in this scenario goods are produced cheaper, people that lose their jobs don't lose as much value because they still get compensated through the taxing and spreading of wealth, and jobs that are repetitive and menial end up getting done by robots while more meaningful jobs that robots can't do continue to be done by humans. (best case scenario)

personally i like option 3. i'd love to see self driving cars replace ubers, truck drivers, etc. i'd love to see fast food workers replaced by machines. all those shitty jobs that pay shit anyway and nobody wants to do get replaced by robots, and the people that lose those jobs still get compensated so they have a salary to live on.

what we've been doing is option 2, which is probably the worst case scenario. we need to move to option 3. more productivity is always good, we just need to spread the gains of our productivity to the people. you should look up andrew yang if you want to know more about this type of solution. the fact is though it's not going to come by just trusting to corporations to tax themselves and spread their gains amongst the people, we need to elect someone that will enforce it. just like nobody would pay taxes in general if they didn't have to.