Actually this makes a lot more sense for rural or suburban delivery than for urban. In the city, there are already trucks that pass by every apartment/house every day, the only question is whether they stop to deliver a package or not. In rural areas, sending a truck out 10-30 miles away from a city center just to deliver one package makes much less sense - it’s a lot more energy to send that truck down the road and more expensive to pay for the driver’s time. Also, the regulatory issues are probably less of an issue in less densely populated areas.
I’m not sure it does. It’s being advertised as a 30-minute delivery option, and I’m guessing will be priced accordingly. Businesses will likely be the biggest taker. It’s more likely to complement standard delivery, unless it proves more cost-effective, which based on the evidence doesn’t seem likely.
And what about noise? Will we be subjected to the constant whine? And how loud will that be?
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This is pure, pardon my french, bullshit, plain and simple. Even - no, especially - if it isn’t just a PR stunt.
Anyone remember this from 1959 (no, I’m not that old, but you know: rockets!):
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Roof-top delivery stations.
Neither rain nor snow, but quite possibly boost-phase intercept…
More free advertising for them?
Yet more fields where workers are replaced by robots/machines, then? Joy.
They could simply have a postage paid mail-back label on the container.
I foresee a logistical problem if the container takes 30 minutes to get to you, and 2 days to get back…
Yo dawg, if I order a drone, will it be delivered by another drone or will my drone fly itself?
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It’s Amazon; they’ll have a gazillion of these containers. They’ll expect a certain number of them will be en route back to the warehouses at any given moment. Kind of like the old days of returnable bottles. The bottlers were good at estimating how many were out there, how long they’d be gone and how many wouldn’t make it back. That way they’d have enough inventory to keep bottling.
Besides, that’s even if Amazon uses these containers. The video was for illustrative purposes only; who knows how it’ll eventually work out?
And, like, what if I order two drones?
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My thought exactly. Not only the driver - the warehouse looked like it might be almost entirely automated. In fact, the one worker we saw would be the easiest one to replace.
And then we will all share in the abundance, and poverty will be no more!
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I’m totally for this. Amazon has already impressed me in just about every way - I’m sure they can pull this off. And there are times when the company I work for, or even I myself, would definitely find this useful.
I’m imagining the potential terror scenarios with thousands of drones in the skies going everywhere, how easy it would be do deliver 5 pounds of high yield explosive to various locations all at once.
This alone makes me doubt that this could be implemented anytime soon, and even later in urban areas.
Technology has been replacing workers for decades, but even if they won’t need as many drivers, they’re going to need a lot of programmers and technicians for drone fleet upkeep.
When was the last time you saw an elevator operator like in those old movies? Automatic elevators made that job obsolete long ago. But with each technological advancement, new jobs are created, too. To keep up, workers need to be more skilled today than twenty years ago.
One programmer and a couple of techs will be able to service enough drones to make obsolete dozens of truck drivers.
The job creation is asymmetrical.
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Yeah, but there has been no indication that the number of jobs replacing older jobs is going to satisfy the need for employment. Plus, it’s not like the population is shrinking. And the way that they are increasing the number of programmers seems like it’s going to be via MOOCs (see the new GA Tech MA, via a MOOC program), meaning less academic jobs in that field, too.
It’s like here in town, when they tore down the projects, and instead promised to keep a percentage of new housing in town for low income families. Sadly, the number of families in need of subsidized housing outstripped the new spaces available. What do YOU think happened to those families? Same thing here. Do you really think the jobs “replacing” factory jobs are actually filling the need or will do so in the future?
just found this:
http://theworstthingsforsale.com/2013/12/01/amazon-prime-air-drone-deliveries/
he makes a good point, hadn’t seen it mentioned ITT yet.
