[zeroonetwothree]

When the Amazon truck drives down my street it’s always stopping at 5 houses or so. So the marginal cost of my package is practically zero.

[oezi]

If you have ever watched a deliver truck on their tracking app to crawl its way to you from stop to stop you realize the most optimistic timing is maybe 1 minute per package. Assuming the truck, driver, gas could be operated for 60 USD/hr the marginal cost seems more like 1 USD per package, but likely more.

[antisthenes]

No wonder Amazon decided to basically create their own logistic chain.

Fedex/UPS cost for a single package is roughly ~$13.95 (this was ~5 years ago when I was working in ecommerce) and even if Amazon was getting a huge discount from them for the volume they do, it was still probably nowhere near $1/package.

[rootusrootus]

That 13.95 price includes airplane rides too, it isn't just the last mile delivery.

[antisthenes]

999/1000 times if you track the package, it was going ground on a freighter.

That price is generally way too low to include air mail.

[roysting]

That is not a logical way of locking at it. You can’t simply “practically zero” the not-zero marginal cost, on top of acting like there’s not a fixed cost that is literally the reason you rationalize that there is “practically zero” marginal cost.

It’s equivalent to “I should live in your house for free because the marginal cost is practically zero”