10 ms·

My theory is these jobs need to last only long enough for self-driving cars to get commoditized.

ekianjo 11y ago
Oh yeah, and who is going to confirm that the delivery is done, or walk in apartment buildings to deliver to the right door ? A robot ? Going to the last mile actually means going to the last centimetre as well. The car is not everything.
- uptown 11y ago
  If we're capable of solving the challenges of self-driving cars, finding a way to implement large curb-side or driveway-side mailboxes with cameras and RFID trackers, or a "fetchbot" that retrieves a box from the car and rolls it into the house, seems like a trivial hurdle to overcome.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    I have not seen many robots which can walk stairs without falling at 99.99% confidence yet for door-to-door delivery. Investment of the systems you mention are high-investment, not worth it vs the cost of a human operator per hour. this may change as new buildings are being built with such facilities in mind, but I have not heard of anything like that yet. So human deliveries have a pretty good future for the time being.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      There's a reason blocks of flats have mailboxes on the ground floor. I predict we'll see a rise of better, automated mailboxes, probably loaded from outside. After solving self-driving there is zero reason to employ a human - are companies really going to keep paying decent salary to dead weight that is occasionally useful to go up the stairs? I don't think so.
      - ekianjo 11y ago
        > I predict we'll see a rise of better, automated mailboxes, probably loaded from outside. Probably, but then it will take time, again.
- kaybe 11y ago
  I think most people would be perfectly happy to walk to the street and open the car with a code they just received per text if that saved them some money.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    > I think most people would be perfectly happy to walk to the street Then it's a worse service and you might as well to the local post office if that's the case.
    - cthalupa 11y ago
      Did you just equate walking to the curb to the same level of inconvenience of having to go to the post office? I'd have to walk nearly as far to get to my car as I would to get to the curb, and then I'd have to drive to the post office, find parking, walk into the post office, wait in line, walk back to my car, drive back, carry the package into my house... "Whelp, having to cook my own food is more inconvenient than having it made for me. At that point I might as well butcher the cow myself!"
    - Splines 11y ago
      It depends on the kind of housing and street layout. If you're in suburbia, walking to your street vs walking to your front door is a difference of 20 feet. Also note that for many neighborhoods in the US, picking up the mail is a PITA - there's a collective mail box somewhere in the neighborhood that you need to walk to, usually a several minute walk. Door-to-door mail delivery only exists for houses that are several decades old. If I could get a business to gather my postal mail & packages and park outside my door I would be very happy.
      - ekianjo 11y ago
        The US is actually not very representative of what the whole world looks like out there. In most modern cities you have apartment buildings with several floors and they have separate mailboxes - either common ones or individual ones right at your door. Amazon is a global company and they would need to address the local differences everywhere.

Oh yeah, and who is going to confirm that the delivery is done, or walk in apartment buildings to deliver to the right door ? A robot ? Going to the last mile actually means going to the last centimetre as well. The car is not everything.

uptown 11y ago
If we're capable of solving the challenges of self-driving cars, finding a way to implement large curb-side or driveway-side mailboxes with cameras and RFID trackers, or a "fetchbot" that retrieves a box from the car and rolls it into the house, seems like a trivial hurdle to overcome.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  I have not seen many robots which can walk stairs without falling at 99.99% confidence yet for door-to-door delivery. Investment of the systems you mention are high-investment, not worth it vs the cost of a human operator per hour. this may change as new buildings are being built with such facilities in mind, but I have not heard of anything like that yet. So human deliveries have a pretty good future for the time being.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    There's a reason blocks of flats have mailboxes on the ground floor. I predict we'll see a rise of better, automated mailboxes, probably loaded from outside. After solving self-driving there is zero reason to employ a human - are companies really going to keep paying decent salary to dead weight that is occasionally useful to go up the stairs? I don't think so.
    - ekianjo 11y ago
      > I predict we'll see a rise of better, automated mailboxes, probably loaded from outside. Probably, but then it will take time, again.
kaybe 11y ago
I think most people would be perfectly happy to walk to the street and open the car with a code they just received per text if that saved them some money.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > I think most people would be perfectly happy to walk to the street Then it's a worse service and you might as well to the local post office if that's the case.
  - cthalupa 11y ago
    Did you just equate walking to the curb to the same level of inconvenience of having to go to the post office? I'd have to walk nearly as far to get to my car as I would to get to the curb, and then I'd have to drive to the post office, find parking, walk into the post office, wait in line, walk back to my car, drive back, carry the package into my house... "Whelp, having to cook my own food is more inconvenient than having it made for me. At that point I might as well butcher the cow myself!"
  - Splines 11y ago
    It depends on the kind of housing and street layout. If you're in suburbia, walking to your street vs walking to your front door is a difference of 20 feet. Also note that for many neighborhoods in the US, picking up the mail is a PITA - there's a collective mail box somewhere in the neighborhood that you need to walk to, usually a several minute walk. Door-to-door mail delivery only exists for houses that are several decades old. If I could get a business to gather my postal mail & packages and park outside my door I would be very happy.
    - ekianjo 11y ago
      The US is actually not very representative of what the whole world looks like out there. In most modern cities you have apartment buildings with several floors and they have separate mailboxes - either common ones or individual ones right at your door. Amazon is a global company and they would need to address the local differences everywhere.