It’s year five, or maybe 10, of “drones are going to revolutionize transport,” and so far we’ve got very little to show for it. Maybe it’s time to put these foolish ambitions to rest and focus on where this technology could actually do some good, rather than pad out a billionaire’s bottom line or let the rich skip traffic.
The promise of drone deliveries, drone taxis and personal drone attendants has never sat, or rather floated, right with me. There’s so little to be gained, while braving so much liability and danger, and necessitating so much invention and testing. Why is anyone even pursuing this?
I suspect it is the Jetsons-esque technotopianism instilled in so many of us from birth: It’s only a matter of time and effort before we have the flying cars, subliminal learning pillows and robot housekeepers we deserve, right? It feels like because we have things that fly, and things that can navigate autonomously, we should be able to put those things together and make delivery drones and air taxis. We just have to wait for the right genius kid building the future out of their garage, with the help of your friendly neighborhood VCs.
Of course it’s not quite that easy. And although the Jetsons mentality explains our acceptance of the development of these technologies — unlike others that we disapprove of for their impracticability, cost or ethics — it doesn’t really explain why a company like Amazon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue it. The answer there, fortunately, is as clear as why Amazon does anything.
To paraphrase Dr. Johnson: “Sir, no man but a blockhead ever [spent a decade trying to build an autonomous drone delivery network], except for money.”
That’s certainly the case with drone delivery. Amazon has made no secret of its intention to take over the logistics and delivery industry bite by bite, partly through sideways subsidy from other parts of its lucrative, mutually buttressed businesses, and partly with a punishing franchise model that offloads risk and liability onto contractors.
That said, the end goal is, as in its warehouses, to replace those flesh and blood workers with tireless automatons. The best evidence for this is that Amazon’s warehouses already treat workers as if they are components in a machine, so it’s just a matter of swapping out a worn out part with another, more reliable part that doesn’t try to unionize. Same with delivery.
High hopes
Image Credits: Amazon
But in the last-mile world, drones are kind of a funny idea. Certainly it has its merits: Many packages are small and light and a drone could skip traffic or travel in a straight line over residential blocks to cut hours off delivery times. But that’s before you reckon with any of the actual needs or restrictions of the logistics world.
To begin with, drones wouldn’t even cover the last mile — more like the last few hundred meters. Part of the reason for this is regulatory; it’s extremely unlikely that Amazon could procure a permit to fly its drones over all the private property in a city. The liability is just too damn high. Sure, you can do some sweetheart test markets in a random suburb, but good luck convincing urban areas to let commercial drones infest their skies at all …….