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)
They have mostly been driving in sunny areas with very nice weather. Driving with strong weather hasn’t really been tackled by anybody yet. Additionally the legal side is still not (officially) resolved.
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)