Maybe Lidar is a crutch. For a lot of things, a crutch is an adequate substitute for a non-broken leg. The trouble with crutches is that if you want to dance, or play baseball, or ride a bike, you can't do it. I can tell you how I've gotten a much bigger annotated dataset, and if I keep collecting, soon I'll be as fast as a normal person at walking down the sidewalk, but people want to do more than just walk down the sidewalk.
Just because it's a crutch doesn't mean it shouldn't be used. It means you should use it until you have a tool that can do better (your healed leg?).
As far as I can tell Musk insists walking unassisted with a broken leg is better than using a crutch because a good leg is better than a crutch. Sure, but he's not providing a good leg, he's providing a broken one. It's like telling people to drag their broken leg today because 3 months from now it will be better than a crutch. And he's not taking this route because today's cars do better with normal cameras than with LIDAR (future cars might though what good is that today?) but because it's cheaper while still allowing big claims.
Use the right tool at the right time. In the meantime develop the next tool and start using it when it becomes appropriate.
