Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Lord and Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

  • Moneo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ll bite.

    Drones are loud as fuck and if drone delivery became common there would be a massive backlash from the public. Most people live in cities and do not have a yard to put a target on lol. Drone delivery in cities is almost certainly less cost efficient than truck delivery. Land drones are much more likely in cities, or just dudes with cargo bikes like in many European cities.

    So yeah drone delivery might “become a thing” but I doubt it will be mainstream.

    • skulblaka@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And that’s not even getting into the point of how much easier and less illegal it is to snipe an Amazon drone out of the sky for its payload than it is to assault an Amazon delivery truck and driver. It may not be more common in the long run than porch pirates, because that’s also easy and low risk, but I 100% fully guarantee you our redneck population will be out in some capacity hunting for Christmas presents.

    • daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Places like Los Angeles are mostly SFH. Most areas are already loud as fuck from road noise, proximity to airports, etc. Nobody will notice a few drones.

      If it becomes popular in LA, that’s pretty much definition of mainstream.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It is remarkable to me how tolerant as a society we have gotten to noise. We just accept that someone has a right to drive modified motorcycles at 3am with 8 of their buddies.

        • daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          It isn’t legal (in US) and cops do occasionally set up decibel traps, especially in places frequently visited by motorcyclists, but I completely agree with you. Quiet nights outside of city feel strange now.