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by alister 4583 days ago
If you recast these questions according to how deliveries work right now, I think you see that we already have all those problems and we manage to live with them:

1. Won't theft run rampant if UPS drops off your package at your door when you're not home?

2. Don't drivers of cars and trucks risk getting shot or stopped?

3. Will cars and trucks travel only in good weather?

4. The highways are going to be littered with cars and trucks driving around? Won't this lead to "traffic jams"?

5. Will there be a service where you can rent a car (or taxi) to spy on your mate?

I'm not trying to be glib, but rephrasing the questions like this puts the issues in a new light. You can see the potential problems and solutions.

4 comments

Also, it should be mentioned that the answer to those questions is that thousands of packages get stolen and thousands of people get killed every year in the current system, yet we still apparently find it acceptable. I find it hard to imagine this drone delivery paradigm being worse.
#4 is less an issue since one truck can carry all the packages for people on its route. With Prime Air, it looks like it's one drone per package/person/destination. If the tradeoff is between vehicles per package (A) and average time to delivery (B), trucks choose A and drones choose B.
#3 is wrong. Flying a drone in a windy / rainy weather isn't exactly the same as driving a car. One is more massive and resistive. The drone we see in demo probably can't fly very well under strong wind or heavy ring. Size matters.
Your response really isn't helpful for 2 and 3.