Most stuff that gets posted here is just horrible and bleak shit, so here's some catastrophically absurd libertarian brainworms instead.
And this is why I say we have a duty to make the cheap ones and fly them anyway. The laws which make this the case are equivalent to those which made people walk in front of early cars waving flags. Between our current fear of any risk, and the vested interests of the powers that be in existing transportation, the flying car will never happen until someone builds one anyway, and allows everyone else to follow in there footsteps.
My biggest related pet peeve is liberal sci-fi. When I'm reading a book about some way far-future people in deep space and they casually bring up money, or a recent war, it just completely takes me out of it. Like, motherfuckers, how did your species survive this long? Shouldn't you have outgrown that shit by now?
In the fantastical far future, your protagonist may have a space truck and goes space trucking to pay bills.