this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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Amazon announced using drones in 2014. In pop culture, drone delivery is like an assumed common practice. Yet fucking nobody gets their packages delivered by drone. It's been over a decade.
These robots are vaporware. Amazon will get a stock bump and that's the whole point.
Yeah, humans regularly deliver stuff wrong on our street. There is no way robots will manage. I get packages for both by neighbours and they get mine more often than correct deliveries and one of my neighbours is a business.
What you just described is humans causing the issue, drone delivery would absolutely solve your problem.
The drone's only as good as its software, the map it's using, and the address data it's given. All of which were created by fallible humans.
Ain't it fun having turtles all the way down?
43.9454776, -123.5393014
^ no address, GPS is very very precise.
When you order something, do you express where you want it sent in coordinates or as an address? You can't assume that the device's coordinates at the time the order is made correspond to where the order is supposed to be sent, even if the device gives coordinates. Plus, they're either not precise enough (could encompass the yard of the house next door, or just the snowbank at the edge of the property) or too precise ("drop this in the center of the roof because that's where the coordinates are"). You'd need software capable of parsing building layouts well enough to figure out where the main entryway is and leave the parcel there, or you'd have to require that people interested in receiving deliveries by drone put a beacon where they want the drone to drop stuff.
Beacons are the simplest solution, but they immediately put Amazon in a position where most people won't care enough to set them up.
Even as pitched, you still have to print out a QR code and staple it to your front lawn for every package. Presumably, they want you to be home for it since it's dropped out in the open and might bounce into the street.
Amazon's drone delivery is trash, you're correct. But eventually it will be significantly better than humans, input gps location and the product will be at that exact location give or take 1 foot
Take a look at ziplines upcoming drone delivery service for instance, it will be significantly better than Amazon's and will be way better than a human delivery driver.
It's been ten fucking years. They are one of the top five companies in the world. What are we waiting for here?
All of the investors that originally paid into the idea have already made their money. There is no reason to continue the project.
Can you point to deliveries that actually use any of that?
Down voted for the obvious observation. A drone just needs to get explicit instructions ones a report is filled and it won't be an issue. Google does more work on Google maps IMO.