I think more generally, eventually, a Waymo is going to kill someone (or at least be involved in a lethal accident) and there will be a loud backlash demanding they all be pulled off the road, and it's best to lay the regulatory (and popular) groundwork for that discussion now.

I would add to that that there seems to be a general consensus that the Uber/Lyft lobby is what's keeping Waymos out of SFO...

well... "In D.C., local politicians have long postponed a key report that would facilitate the broader use of these vehicles despite 18 months of successful testing. In Boston, the City Council is considering mandating a “human safety operator” in every vehicle, stalling meaningful deployment."

Hmm, I have an excellent Gregory "main pack / day pack" combo bag but I could use a standalone Weekend Trip Bag...

It's not the wealth, it's the perceived precarity, which is very hard to measure but I would guess at circa 2007 (which is also when Taleb published The Black Swan predicting precarity's inexorable rise)