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Amazon's drone delivery program is the joke it always sounded like. (news.yahoo.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

241 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Lord and Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (10 children)

The program itself isn't absurd, but Amazon is a bunch of fucking clowns. I only expect them to fail in the world of logistics. But they're so big & everybody keeps giving them their money, they can do whatever they want, poorly, forever. They fail 'up'.

Drone delivery is indeed part of the future of logistics. They just need to make the drones more robust to handle slightly bigger, heavier loads, like at least 10# would be great & a reasonable goal. Arm it with AI so it knows where to drop the payload. Etc etc. There are indeed a number of kinks to be worked out....and who better to crash & burn, learn on than Amazon? 🤡

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I live on the 10th story of an apartment building. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I live in a duplex with a front yard that's about two square feet between the front stoop and the sidewalk. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I live in a house surrounded by a lot of trees. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I have an enclosed front porch, inside of which deliveries can safely be left without worrying about them being stolen. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

Drone delivery to someone's home might be useful for a small number of people in specific circumstances. Most circumstances would be far more efficient if done by a human.

What does this actually solve?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In Germany we have a trial run of food delivery. A drone will bring a package with up to 4.5 kg to a "remote" village, then some students on e-bikes will bring it to the houses. Why they are using drones instead of one lorry a day is unknown.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Having students bike the final mile sounds a lot like Theranos saying they could do all these amazing blood tests on their new, futuristic machine, only to find out that they're still doing most of them the way all labs did them

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