Google's Waze will shut down its carpooling service, available in the US, Brazil, and Israel, in September, citing shifting commuting patterns due to COVID-19
The company is citing shifting commuting patterns as a result of the COVID pandemic — Google-owned navigation service Waze …
Context & Ripple Effects
Waze's carpooling experiment ran seven years: a 2015 Israel pilot capped at two rides a day, an SF-area opening priced at up to 54¢/mile, then a US-wide rollout in 2018. The service was always positioned as cost-sharing rather than profit-generating rideshare.
The September shutdown across the US, Brazil, and Israel ends that arc, with Google attributing the decision to pandemic-era shifts in commuting patterns — the same forces that reshaped every commute-dependent product of the last two years.
First-order effects
- Drivers and riders in the three markets lose the service in September, ending a model where commuters recouped gas and wear costs without becoming commercial drivers.
Second-order effects
- Google consolidates Waze around its core navigation franchise — already extended into Android Auto alongside Google Maps — rather than maintaining a side business competing for commuter attention.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, pandemic-era commuting experiments get pruned as hybrid work settles in, pushing Google to concentrate Waze on mapping data and navigation rather than mobility services.
The trend: Commute-anchored products are being retired or refocused as remote and hybrid work permanently thins the daily rush-hour demand they were built on.