X, the moonshot factory 3 years ago
Describing “landed” as “Waymo is profitable and deployed in most of the US” would be like arguing that the space program was a failure because it didn’t lead to profitable space ports and space routes.
The equivalent of the moon landing for self driving tech is closer to “they have driven a lot of miles without anybody in the driver seat”, which both Cruise and Waymo have done (>1M miles)