[InclinedPlane]

> "The idea that the value and utility of the automobile is diminished because everybody has one is absurd."

You missed it entirely. The argument is that it is unreasonable and unsustainable to expect that everybody should own one. We have normalized many of the costs of near universal automobile ownership today, but in many ways it is unsustainable, particularly as urbanization increases and particularly as cities are the main economic drivers in the modern era. We're killing ourselves with the idea that everybody not only should own a beach house but has to own a beach house in order to function in society and the economy, and there just isn't enough beach front property for that to be realistic.