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It's good for Amazon, but is it good for consumers? Isn't a postal service something of a natural monopoly — the more competing services there are, the less eff

It's good for Amazon, but is it good for consumers? Isn't a postal service something of a natural monopoly — the more competing services there are, the less efficient each is, because instead of one vehicle with one load of deliveries, you have two or more vehicles with fractions of that amount? It's certainly not good for the environment at least.

rerx 7y ago
I feel delivery companies should bid for providing service for the last couple of kilometers, then the winner should get an exclusive contract for some time frame. That's how it's done for other services like regional rail public transport.
- rerx 7y ago
  Did I hit a nerve by picking public transport as an example? If it does not work out, regulations are bad. Competing non cooperating infrastructure service providers are a bad idea if they hinder each other.
- gruez 7y ago
  >That's how it's done for other services like regional rail public transport. Ask any Brit how privatized rail's working out for them.
  - rerx 7y ago
    Regional rail works okayish in Germany. A part of the regions and lines are carried by private business, others by the former monopolist that is still fully owned by the state.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Why exclusive contract? What is gained? Rail right of way is exclusive just from geometry and there are various historical "accidents" involved in ownership from no longer relevant reasons but there are myraid ways to deliver mail which may or may not be excluding. A forced bidding system seems to give gameability and artifical barriers to entry for little gain. To give an anchhacic example of the sort of problems it would be akin to requiring a business that can serve all of New York City competively before bidding. Having a mail room in the lobby of a large apartment would violate that due to serving only residents.
  - rerx 7y ago
    I was thinking of parcel deliveries. Narrowish European inner city streets are regularly blocked by delivery trucks and fundamentally it's unnecessarily many of them because there are so many different companies servicing the same street. Where I live double parking on bicycle lanes is extremely common (the individual delivery people often see no alternatives), which poses massive dangers to cyclists. Also these trucks typically are quite large, worsening all issues, because a full load is meant for a long route. If there was just a single company responsible for some "last mile" area, smaller vehicles like this electric model [1] would suffice. They would distribute parcels from a depot that is filled by larger long distance trucks that do not need to belong to the same company. The last point is important: If DHL, FedEx, UPS etc. each have their own final storage buildings and delivery fleet, those depots could not all be situated close enough to the target addresses. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter
mytailorisrich 7y ago
Natural monopoly means that it's not possible for more than one supplier to survive. This is clearly not the case for packages delivery. For consumers the more suppliers the better.
- larzang 7y ago
  Consumers benefit assuming all suppliers are equivalent, which is not at all the case with Amazon. They're gaining a price advantage over using real carriers mainly through incredibly exploitative labor practices in the warehouse and abusing uber-like contractors to cover the last mile for pennies on the dollar. Not only is the human/societal cost high, consumers directly suffer as well as untrained contractors working irregular routes rush to meet unrealistic deadlines. Every day a different person in a rented van pulls up to throw armloads of packages at my building, may or may not be the right entrance, they don't know the place and have no time to check, before racing off to the next location.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Consumers benefit because of competition and redundancy several suppliers create. Competition forces suppliers whose service is deemed inadequate by the market to change or disappear. Clearly the market wants packages delivered fast and cheap.
  - tracer4201 7y ago
    If the model is failing as you describe, then more competition is a good thing. Consumers will flock to whoever that provides better service for what it is they’re willing to pay. I’m not sure how consumers suffer - if trained or untrained contractors fail at their jobs, consumers take their business elsewhere. It sounds like you’re against Amazons delivery practices. Fine. But the more competition there is, the better. UPS or Fedex absolutely shouldn’t own the private delivery market.
- pmart123 7y ago
  I think what he means is sometimes there is a benefit to having one service provider. For instance, it is cheaper if a city offers trash pickup in a district to one service provider. The logic is that it’s much more efficient to have one truck stop at each house versus trucks zig zagging around each other.
davio 7y ago
I think Amazon delivering stuff I want is better for the environment than USPS delivering junk mail daily.
TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago
I think there is enough packages to be delivered that you would more likely have two trucks with full loads anyways. These companies aren't making any shipments with anything less than a full truck, I'm sure of it
- rerx 7y ago
  But surely they would rather have one truck service a shorter route than have two trucks service the same longer route if it leads to the same overall utilization rate.

rerx 7y ago

I feel delivery companies should bid for providing service for the last couple of kilometers, then the winner should get an exclusive contract for some time frame. That's how it's done for other services like regional rail public transport.

rerx 7y ago
Did I hit a nerve by picking public transport as an example? If it does not work out, regulations are bad. Competing non cooperating infrastructure service providers are a bad idea if they hinder each other.
gruez 7y ago
>That's how it's done for other services like regional rail public transport. Ask any Brit how privatized rail's working out for them.
- rerx 7y ago
  Regional rail works okayish in Germany. A part of the regions and lines are carried by private business, others by the former monopolist that is still fully owned by the state.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Why exclusive contract? What is gained? Rail right of way is exclusive just from geometry and there are various historical "accidents" involved in ownership from no longer relevant reasons but there are myraid ways to deliver mail which may or may not be excluding. A forced bidding system seems to give gameability and artifical barriers to entry for little gain. To give an anchhacic example of the sort of problems it would be akin to requiring a business that can serve all of New York City competively before bidding. Having a mail room in the lobby of a large apartment would violate that due to serving only residents.
- rerx 7y ago
  I was thinking of parcel deliveries. Narrowish European inner city streets are regularly blocked by delivery trucks and fundamentally it's unnecessarily many of them because there are so many different companies servicing the same street. Where I live double parking on bicycle lanes is extremely common (the individual delivery people often see no alternatives), which poses massive dangers to cyclists. Also these trucks typically are quite large, worsening all issues, because a full load is meant for a long route. If there was just a single company responsible for some "last mile" area, smaller vehicles like this electric model [1] would suffice. They would distribute parcels from a depot that is filled by larger long distance trucks that do not need to belong to the same company. The last point is important: If DHL, FedEx, UPS etc. each have their own final storage buildings and delivery fleet, those depots could not all be situated close enough to the target addresses. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter

mytailorisrich 7y ago

Natural monopoly means that it's not possible for more than one supplier to survive. This is clearly not the case for packages delivery. For consumers the more suppliers the better.

larzang 7y ago
Consumers benefit assuming all suppliers are equivalent, which is not at all the case with Amazon. They're gaining a price advantage over using real carriers mainly through incredibly exploitative labor practices in the warehouse and abusing uber-like contractors to cover the last mile for pennies on the dollar. Not only is the human/societal cost high, consumers directly suffer as well as untrained contractors working irregular routes rush to meet unrealistic deadlines. Every day a different person in a rented van pulls up to throw armloads of packages at my building, may or may not be the right entrance, they don't know the place and have no time to check, before racing off to the next location.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Consumers benefit because of competition and redundancy several suppliers create. Competition forces suppliers whose service is deemed inadequate by the market to change or disappear. Clearly the market wants packages delivered fast and cheap.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  If the model is failing as you describe, then more competition is a good thing. Consumers will flock to whoever that provides better service for what it is they’re willing to pay. I’m not sure how consumers suffer - if trained or untrained contractors fail at their jobs, consumers take their business elsewhere. It sounds like you’re against Amazons delivery practices. Fine. But the more competition there is, the better. UPS or Fedex absolutely shouldn’t own the private delivery market.
pmart123 7y ago
I think what he means is sometimes there is a benefit to having one service provider. For instance, it is cheaper if a city offers trash pickup in a district to one service provider. The logic is that it’s much more efficient to have one truck stop at each house versus trucks zig zagging around each other.

davio 7y ago

I think Amazon delivering stuff I want is better for the environment than USPS delivering junk mail daily.

TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago

I think there is enough packages to be delivered that you would more likely have two trucks with full loads anyways. These companies aren't making any shipments with anything less than a full truck, I'm sure of it

rerx 7y ago
But surely they would rather have one truck service a shorter route than have two trucks service the same longer route if it leads to the same overall utilization rate.