are they really putting more vehicles on the road though? That is, are they replacing a larger number of people driving themselves to stores with a smaller number of professional delivery vehicles?
Amazon is directly putting additional vehicles to the road as a fourth shipping carrier, where USPS, FedEx & UPS already run trucks through these neighborhoods.
If Amazon wanted, they could expand their use of existing infrastructure, namely USPS (which is legally obligated to service homes and businesses) rather than create redundant, poorly maintained secondary infrastructure.
Amazon's FBA program is entirely focused on paying as little as possible to get parcels delivered. There are no living wages, or properly maintained delivery vehicles to be had for the workers that carry Amazon's parcels.
It's not like you can just fit all of Amazon's load on existing carriers, they would probably need to put more trucks on the road if they absorbed Amazon's load.
Correct. We know this to be true because UPS lacked the capacity to deliver for Amazon a few years ago around the holidays, which is what prompted Amazon to start their own service.
I don’t think you understood grandparent. He pointed out the consumers needing products would be driving themselves and not having Amazon do it for them.
You don’t think it’s even possible that the ability to have practically any itch immediately scratched makes it more likely people would pull the trigger on impulse purchases?
That’s practically the entire story of the consumer economy over the last 50 years.
And more demand is often a bad thing. More demand for meat is straining our natural resources, e.g.