The author misses the difference between cashflow and profit entirely.

Selling a car today gives Tesla the full profits of that hardware production today. Running that car as a robotaxi means that Tesla eats the costs of the hardware today in exchange for a larger total profit collected over several years.

So operating a fleet gives the company access to more long-term profits at the cost of decreasing the bank balance today (negative cash flow), where selling the cars lets the company fill the bank account right now (positive cash flow) at the cost of limiting long-term profitability.

The decision to prioritize immediate cash flow vs long term profits depends on the financial position and overall strategy of the company.

Tesla can do both. There will undoubtedly be a fee to join and use the Tesla ridesharing platform - I would expect that every Cybercab sold to require, at the minimum, the monthly $100 FSD subscription. On top of that, Tesla would take a cut off of all rides that cannot be negotiated.

Any franchisee contract would also need to have some sort of rules that prevent Tesla from running their own taxis themselves and undercutting their business, if it turns out to be too successful.

Tesla is not eating the cost of anything, they want to have their cake and eat it too. this will go as well for them as bunch of other things in recent years but just maybe this time people will realize they have been getting scammed for decade+