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Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

bloomberg.com

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Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#141

Post by jtolmar »

brenschluss wrote: post #25

I feel like this is a stunt. Drone delivery only works with customers that have private backyards - so won't work in a city, since the payload is unsecured after the drones drop it off. In a suburban/rural context, density is lower, meaning that with the limited range of drones, distribution centers won't be able to take advantage of density. Thus the range of products available at each distribution center will be mu…

In Seattle, at least, it's very common for apartments to have tiny private balconies. If a drone can deliver to one of those, it will be more convenient than trying to deal with the average apartment complex's mailroom.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#142

Post by mikeash »

anton_tarasenko wrote: post #35

That's a last mile solution. Comparing to human costs of Amazon's preferred shipping method: USPS's subsidized parcel injection. The last mile belongs to USPS. In the urban environment, that's about 15 minute per parcel at $20 per hour (labor plus trucks). I.e., $5 per parcel. For FedEx, the cost of the entire expedition process is roughly $6.6 per parcel ($43bn cost of revenue for 6.5bn deliveries), so the last mile…

These drones are a lot smaller than helicopters, which will avoid many of the disadvantages of helicopters. It'll greatly reduce noise, fuel consumption, and risk of injury or death, and greatly increase the number of places where it can take off and land.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#143

Post by John23832 »

FroshKiller wrote: post #101
John23832 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, a blu-ray movie isn't hurt by a 20 foot drop. A blu-ray player is. Most packages are not made for shocks, just constant pressure (think the difference between someone punching you and someone sitting on you). Also, I'd bet that what you consider a safe range for drone operation and what a federal aviation safety official (or non-US equivalent) considers safe are two totally different animals.

My threshold for what is safe is irrelevant, and we can change laws if we want. I can walk down to my sidewalk and have a half-ton vehicle going 45 mph drive within 20 feet of me in a moment. There is no question in my mind that that circumstance is much more dangerous than any delivery drone you care to send coming within half that distance. We live with some very generous tolerances for risk. But to speak to the Bl…

> My threshold for what is safe is irrelevant

>> There is ample space to fly right up to my door step without ever coming close to any person or vehicle

You used your threshold for safety as the basis of your argument.

> what makes you think every possible item to be delivered would need to be accounted for in modeling a service like this?

I think this because I highly doubt Amazon wants to make the move to drone delivery in order to move potato chips, or single video games, or movies which cost at most 70 bucks. The aim to automate delivery as a whole through drones, not automating special cases. We're not talking about a set of weights here. I gave the example of a single blu-ray player, which is a reasonable item for delivery.

Even if you want to stay with your special case, dropping items from 20ft in the air, or lowering a drone with spinning propellers to street level, in a city is a issue. Companies don't like potential liability.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#144

Post by satysin »

stevecalifornia wrote: post #20

Vacations are already being soiled by people flying loud drones in areas of natural beauty, now we get to have our day-to-day skies soiled by fleets of drones delivering popcorn. Am I the only one who doesn't want this specifically because of the noise nuisance?

Vacations are already being soiled by people driving loud vehicles in areas of natural beauty, now we get to have our day-to-day countryside soiled by fleets of cars and trucks delivering popcorn.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#145

Post by jeffmcjunkin »

wehadfun wrote: post #86
vkou wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year, without fail, there are people in the world who are killed by goats. This doesn't mean that I need to worry about goat attacks.

Your logic is off. If you spend a lot of time around goats then worrying about a goat attack is valid. Similar to how people in North Dakota do not worry about hurricane but people in the Florida Keys do.

I can't help but reference https://xkcd.com/795/

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#146

Post by bit_logic »

It seems regulation in this area is inevitable. Similar to how AT&T was regulated because of the natural monopoly of phone cables to all homes (it doesn't make sense for each phone company to have it's own cable going to every home).

The air doesn't have infinite capacity. What happens when Google, Microsoft, Walmart, Target, etc. all try to operate their own drone fleets? At a minimum, there must be a common protocol to coordinate all this drone air traffic. Or maybe it's better to recognize it as a natural monopoly and only allow one regulated drone fleet.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#147

Post by skinnymuch »

wehadfun wrote: post #37
kaishiro wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to make a point? If so, could you be more clear?

Sure! The comment I replied to, seems to imply that hijacking UPS trucks is a non-existent, or rare event. A simple Google Search seems to indicate that it happens all the time. There for making the original OPs concern somewhat valid.

Are you not greatly exaggerating with "all the time"?

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#148

Post by apsec112 »

stevecalifornia wrote: post #20

Vacations are already being soiled by people flying loud drones in areas of natural beauty, now we get to have our day-to-day skies soiled by fleets of drones delivering popcorn. Am I the only one who doesn't want this specifically because of the noise nuisance?

Cars are already ubiquitous and really, really loud. We tend to forget this because we're all so used to it. From the first values I could find with decent sourcing, at a distance of 25 feet, a car driving by at reasonably high speed is 77 dB, while a drone is 65 dB. I live 500 feet from a freeway, with lots of buildings between here and there, and I can still hear clearly hear the traffic indoors with windows closed.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#149

Post by woobar »

kbenson wrote: post #118
toby wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any youth who can hit a small object 400ft away moving 50mph has far more lucrative options than drone theft.

It has to come down to deliver. Even if doing roof deliveries, if they are on a roof within a building or two, they won't be that far away from the drone. Plenty of young people put good skills to use in stupid ways until they get older (and some never hit "until"). Sometimes it's how they develop those skills in the first place. The big reason why I think this is likely is the same as why I think it's more likely wi…

Or they can start delivering to the places where they already leave packages at the door w/o issues.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#150

Post by dang »

tedks wrote: post #93

Old man yells at cloud, curses future, more at 11.

We've banned this account for continuing to post personal attacks and uncivil comments despite multiple requests not to.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177746 and marked it off-topic.

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