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I never mentioned bulk goods. I mentioned items that are time sensitive. Most e-commerce is latency sensitive. I recently started getting groceries on an hour d

I never mentioned bulk goods. I mentioned items that are time sensitive. Most e-commerce is latency sensitive. I recently started getting groceries on an hour delivery. It’s a game changer. Amazon could probably power a network like that by itself. What would a 2 hour Amazon delivery to most cities do? What markets does it enable access to? How do you compete with that? It’s too easy to think of why something won’t work. Rather think “is there a customer and a product for which latency is important but is unfulfilled by current infrastructure”. Don’t use my examples, make your own. Saying “no” to that question is to bet against human desires and ingenuity. Freshest (anything) from 200km away within 2 hours. Will top restaurants pay for that? Latest widget from a warehouse 500km away in 2 hours. Allows Amazon to compete with local stores. Allows medical supplies to get there in a surge. I’m sure you can think of something.

ashtonkem 6y ago
> Don’t use my examples, make your own. That’s ... not how arguments work. You’ve got to provide your own examples. I’m not going to do your work for you. > Saying “no” to that question is to bet against human desires and ingenuity This is genuinely a bad way to approach these things, as you’re presuming that it’ll work based on enthusiasm and not evidence. This exact same logic would’ve led you to advocate for flying cars, as you would’ve assumed that ingenuity would triumph over the practical issues that have so far prevented them from working. Ingenuity is great, but market demand actually pays for the bills. And predicting exactly what the market will do is impossible, but given the fact that this will cost trillions of dollars to actually build, it should be possible to predict use cases that’ll bring in billions of revenue. > Allow Amazon to compete with local stores. Amazon is already crushing local stores on price. It turns out that consumers value delivery speed but not as much as they value low cost. A hyper loop might improve the speed of goods between Amazon warehouses (or run fewer), but it would do nothing to improve the “last mile” problem, which is where all the cost is. Drone delivery + a hyper loop would actually be faster; but I’m dubious that this use case alone covers said trillions of dollars of cost; especially when drone delivery from local warehouses would work too. > Will top restaurants pay for that? No. Restaurants can barely afford the delivery fees of people with cars. Maybe Michelin Star restaurants can afford a bit more, but not that much. > Allows medical supplies to get there in a surge. Much easier to just shove it in the back of a C130J. And it requires us to invest a grand total of $0 in new infrastructure or hardware. > I’m sure you can think of something. Again, if you’re going to advocate that it will work, that’s your job.
- richardw 6y ago
  I said let’s think it out. That’s an invitation to consider possibilities that might work, not a declaration that I’ve found the perfect example. Brainstorm, not argue. But hey, argue gets your rocks off, go right ahead. Feel smarter pointing out that something very hard probably won’t work? We knew that already.

ashtonkem 6y ago

> Don’t use my examples, make your own. That’s ... not how arguments work. You’ve got to provide your own examples. I’m not going to do your work for you. > Saying “no” to that question is to bet against human desires and ingenuity This is genuinely a bad way to approach these things, as you’re presuming that it’ll work based on enthusiasm and not evidence. This exact same logic would’ve led you to advocate for flying cars, as you would’ve assumed that ingenuity would triumph over the practical issues that have so far prevented them from working. Ingenuity is great, but market demand actually pays for the bills. And predicting exactly what the market will do is impossible, but given the fact that this will cost trillions of dollars to actually build, it should be possible to predict use cases that’ll bring in billions of revenue. > Allow Amazon to compete with local stores. Amazon is already crushing local stores on price. It turns out that consumers value delivery speed but not as much as they value low cost. A hyper loop might improve the speed of goods between Amazon warehouses (or run fewer), but it would do nothing to improve the “last mile” problem, which is where all the cost is. Drone delivery + a hyper loop would actually be faster; but I’m dubious that this use case alone covers said trillions of dollars of cost; especially when drone delivery from local warehouses would work too. > Will top restaurants pay for that? No. Restaurants can barely afford the delivery fees of people with cars. Maybe Michelin Star restaurants can afford a bit more, but not that much. > Allows medical supplies to get there in a surge. Much easier to just shove it in the back of a C130J. And it requires us to invest a grand total of $0 in new infrastructure or hardware. > I’m sure you can think of something. Again, if you’re going to advocate that it will work, that’s your job.

richardw 6y ago
I said let’s think it out. That’s an invitation to consider possibilities that might work, not a declaration that I’ve found the perfect example. Brainstorm, not argue. But hey, argue gets your rocks off, go right ahead. Feel smarter pointing out that something very hard probably won’t work? We knew that already.