Amazon Flex • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Flex

#111

Post by scrollaway » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #89

tokenizerrr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be deprecated as soon as self driving cars become viable. The same goes for most jobs like this, technology will catch up eventually and make them obsolote.

I'm still waiting to see cashiers disappear in supermarkets. Or bakers, since bread and cake production could be completely automatized by now. Strangely they are not going away. I wonder why... People who predict extinction of jobs are usually wrong.

And people who refuse to see it are usually blind...

The supermarkets I go to have greatly reduced their cashiers. In most cases by at least half, especially in small shops (3 cashiers has become 2-3 machines and one human).

As for bakers, they don't just make bread and cake.

Excellent video on the subject: CGPGrey - Humans Need Not Apply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

Re: Amazon Flex

#112

Post by verbin217 » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #93

jcfrei wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the ongoing commoditization of work is that it causes it to lose value. As a result the economy becomes more efficient. However the question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency? It certainly isn't the worker, whose labour becomes cheaper every year (there hasn't been an increase in real wages for over a decade now in the US). The consumer certainly benefits from lower prices. However who…

> However the question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency? Who benefited from Ford making cars more efficiently ? Their employees as well, since they could buy cars on their own at cheaper prices than the then available cars. Productivity gains improve life for EVERYONE, even the poorer ones. There's so many examples I don't even know what kind of point you are trying to make here. Improvements in agric…

Expectations went up too. In proportion to the increase in efficiency. So people's perceptions of their own lives decrease in value. That's just how people work. You can say whatever you want about these absolutes. No one cares and you noted it yourself.

Re: Amazon Flex

#113

Post by qnk » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

suvelx wrote: post #96

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-commerce companies have 2 points of contact with the customer - the website and the courier. It makes no sense whatsoever to me why there's this ongoing race to the bottom on the courier side of things while companies spend more and more on the website side. I suppose at that point they already have your money, so what if this delivery experience is awful? Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being mu…

What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free. Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job. Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Th…

  "Everybody has jobs"

Yes, even the delivery guys who have already been working all day and probably don't want to work past 5pm. There are several alternatives to get custom delivery schedules that work for you, like Amazon locker or Doorman.co.

Re: Amazon Flex

#114

Post by dazc » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

suvelx wrote: post #8

I've got a suspicion that Amazon has been trialling/building this in the UK since their purchase of Yodel, perhaps earlier. A number of times some bloke in a car has turned up and delivered me a package. No uniform, no branding. Just a phone running Amazon software. I can't say it's the greatest experience.

Yodel is owned by Shop Direct Group (Littlewoods, Very, etc). Amazon do have a minor stake though.

Re: Amazon Flex

#115

Post by kra34 » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

vkjv wrote: post #10

notjustanymike wrote: post #2

Coming soon to Baltimore! Good luck with that fellas!

I have lived in Baltimore my entire life and this comment is an enigma. I assume this is some type of jab at crime, but IMHO, Baltimore is perfect for this kind of operation. To name a few reasons: * Urban environment. Lots of deliveries in a short period of time. * Amazon DH is conveniently located near I-95 for easy access to the city as well as I-695 and surrounding suburbia. * Traffic actually isn't that bad comp…

Seriously, traffic isn't that bad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=Cds9uQMQAnA

and also the governor of the state wrote an oped about how bad Baltimore city is at being a city:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-hogan-baltimo...

I have lived in Baltimore for over 10 years. The roads are in terrible shape, there are only two streets to get across town and they are jammed 12 hours a day. 95 is under heavy construction and the entry points into the city from 95 no longer support the volume of traffic.

Re: Amazon Flex

#116

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #87

tokenizerrr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be deprecated as soon as self driving cars become viable. The same goes for most jobs like this, technology will catch up eventually and make them obsolote.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, that's precisely the problem with most jobs like this.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Flex

#117

Post by ousta » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #89

tokenizerrr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be deprecated as soon as self driving cars become viable. The same goes for most jobs like this, technology will catch up eventually and make them obsolote.

I'm still waiting to see cashiers disappear in supermarkets. Or bakers, since bread and cake production could be completely automatized by now. Strangely they are not going away. I wonder why... People who predict extinction of jobs are usually wrong.

cashiers are getting extincted little by little, supermarkets all have self checkin, macdonalds rlies heavily on it, train systems in many countries have automated lines, bakers have long been replaced by industrial ovens and breads in EVERY supermarket and they are now low qualified workers helped by electronic ovens who unfreeze breads instead of workers. don't make any mistake as technology evolves it becomes cheaper to replace a low-skill worker by a robot and this trend will likely raise until it is much much much more cheaper to get a robot than a worker (this is probably already cheaper to have all selfcheckin than cashiers but companies are keeping them for social and ethical reason, my thinking being that those ethical bareers tends to get slimmer when cost difference increase)

Re: Amazon Flex

#118

Post by shawnee_ » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland.

Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets."

Re: Amazon Flex

#119

Post by mikeash » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

suvelx wrote: post #96

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-commerce companies have 2 points of contact with the customer - the website and the courier. It makes no sense whatsoever to me why there's this ongoing race to the bottom on the courier side of things while companies spend more and more on the website side. I suppose at that point they already have your money, so what if this delivery experience is awful? Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being mu…

What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free. Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job. Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Th…

Because one guy is delivering a huge number of packages, and the service wants this to happen in the most efficient i.e. cheapest way possible. They do their best to come up with an optimal route for all the packages for the day. UPS famously goes so far as to avoid left turns whenever possible when planning their routes for the day, because it takes up significantly more time.

If you're picking a more specific delivery window then you're throwing off that planning and it likely requires the delivery driver to take a less efficient route than they otherwise would. That costs the company, and therefore it costs you.

Re: Amazon Flex

#120

Post by organsnyder » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

suvelx wrote: post #96

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-commerce companies have 2 points of contact with the customer - the website and the courier. It makes no sense whatsoever to me why there's this ongoing race to the bottom on the courier side of things while companies spend more and more on the website side. I suppose at that point they already have your money, so what if this delivery experience is awful? Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being mu…

What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free. Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope your driver is competent at his job. Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm on Th…

To get efficiency, delivery companies have highly optimized routes to deliver as many packages in as little time and distance traveled. UPS even has algorithms to reduce the number of left turns. It's probably cheaper for delivery companies to make multiple delivery attempts than it is for them to allow recipients to specify their own delivery times.

Of course, there shouldn't be any logistical impediments preventing the delivery company from notifying you once a more precise delivery window is known.