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I doubt many people really want obnoxious drones flying through their neighborhood anyway. I know we already have cars and trucks which are noisy and potentiall

I doubt many people really want obnoxious drones flying through their neighborhood anyway. I know we already have cars and trucks which are noisy and potentially hazardous, so maybe people would just get used to drones too - but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why.

underseacables 5y ago
I would predict the issue of interference from third party ground lifeforms to be the largest obstacle to over come. Heck, even a kid with a slingshot could do a lot of damage.
- gruez 5y ago
  Windows seem to do fine, despite being equally being vulnerable to slingshots and being sitting ducks.
  - bigyikes 5y ago
    Windows aren’t despised, though (I love drones)
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Nor is there a challenge to shooting a window. Nor is there potential for getting a "prize" for shooting a window. Playing a game amongst friends with slingshots (or other drone-incapacitaing devices) where the one to disable the drone gets to keep the delivery. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a game played amongst friends.
      - sleepybrett 5y ago
        I was out flying with some friends in a spot on an abandoned golf course. Being super respectful of the houses around the edges, flying pretty much in the middle of the course. Some dumbass decided our drones were good skeet targets. The police were very unkind to him and slightly peeved with us... it was a number of years ago.
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      Windows don't deliver random gifts if you break them. [1] [1] Does not apply to professional window breakers.
- protomyth 5y ago
  At some point, the local Corvidaes (e.g. crow, raven) will figure out that some drones are carrying food.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Or birds of prey becoming pissed and more territorial.
    - protomyth 5y ago
      If they do start allowing drones to do deliveries in cities. Please, please, someone get a grant to study if the bird start attacking any particularly colored drones or drones that originate in certain places. I really want to know if the Walmart (probably carrying food and other supplies) gets attacked as much as say a GrubHub drone.
jcims 5y ago
I like the blimp mothership idea.
neolog 5y ago
> I'm not sure why. Small drones are 80+ dB (louder than a vacuum cleaner). Delivery drones are even louder.
r00fus 5y ago
> but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why. Drones are a perfect surveillance or weapons platform. You could really mess someone up with a drone and most people intuitively get that.
ARandomerDude 5y ago
> but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why I'll give two reasons, though doubtless there are more. 1. They add a third dimension of visibility, thus decreasing or eliminating outdoor privacy. Currently, I can sit on my back porch and watch the kids play in a suburban, fenced yard. With drones overhead, the privacy we currently enjoy is lost. 2. They remove what reasonable boundaries for "safe zones" we have left. For the entire lives of everyone now living, "don't play in the street" has been equivalent to "play in the grass where you're safe." With drones, instead of "look left and right before crossing the street," it's "look left, right, and up, and estimate the trajectory of any drones at all times."
- tshaddox 5y ago
  The privacy point may be somewhat valid, although 2-story houses in an average U.S. suburb already easily put most yards in view of neighbors' upper story windows. And any drone specifically used to spy on neighbors will either be relatively close and thus fairly loud and noticeable, or have nice camera gear that would already enable a lot of spying even without a drone (e.g. in upper story windows, again). The safety issue doesn't strike me as compelling. I don't think drones introduce much physical danger beyond, say, playing baseball in the neighborhood. Obviously if the sky became very crowded with delivery drones, or crash landings became at all common, this would be an obvious reason for heavy regulation, but I don't see this posing much of a danger.
  - babesh 5y ago
    I worry about falling drones. How far above ground did the drones fly? How fast were they flying? How heavy were they when you added payload? What material were the blades? Was there any protection or cushioning? Where do they intend to fly? Above streets or above homes or above sidewalks?
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Worrying makes sense. I worry the same for much, much larger delivery airplanes that probably pass overhead multiple times per day. But there's a difference between worrying and outright opposing.
elromulous 5y ago
Do you suppose people felt the same way about automobiles before their use was widespread?
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Not really. Horse drawn carriages were also dangerous to get near, iron shod hooves on cobbles were loud, and they left big piles of unsanitary dung.
- tdeck 5y ago
  I recently watched this video which made me think maybe we're taking the loudness of traffic for granted: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 It seems that there are a number of proven solutions to reduce automobile noise when we put in the effort, which IMO is a huge benefit for quality of life.
climb_stealth 5y ago
I find the noise of drones much more annoying than trucks and cars. There's something about those small rotor noises that really grates on me. I really hope this never kicks off.
- nmstoker 5y ago
  Yes, the trucks can be pretty bad for noise already. The payoff of convenient delivery makes it just about acceptable. Taking the noise to another level won't go down well in many locations and doesn't offer that much more for the consumer.
- illegalsmile 5y ago
  I find them to be annoying too but I imagine it's the same as the car superseding the horse on streets i.e. "get off my lawn" more than anything else. When they really bug me, for the same reason you have, is when I'm away from people, roads and industry and I hear them.
- GordonS 5y ago
  Same here, the high-pitched whine reminds me of a mosquito buzzing around my ear - it's just so intensely irritating!
JKCalhoun 5y ago
> The systems required to make drones land outside people’s homes were heavy and Amazon’s drones ballooned to about 27 kilograms… : > “The hard bit is the last two metres off the ground. It’s astonishing what machine learning can do, but it’s also astonishing what it gets wrong,” First child killed by a delivery drone and it's over.
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  This. People will be using them for skeet shooting practice after that.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  In the US maybe. The Chinese will keep perfecting the system regardless.
- aix1 5y ago
  > First child killed by a delivery drone and it's over. I am doubtful, given that there are 4000 kids killed annually in the US by cars and a further 3000 by firearms. These are relatively easy to legislate (compared to disease, drowning etc) yet are the two highest causes of death. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/car-crashes-guns-killed-the-most-us-children-and-teens-in-2016 https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/...
JohnFen 5y ago
The sound of a drone and the sound of a car or truck, even if the volume is the same, is very different. Drones put forth a lot more high frequency noise, which is far more irritating (and harder to block out) than the relatively low frequency of cars and trucks.

underseacables 5y ago

I would predict the issue of interference from third party ground lifeforms to be the largest obstacle to over come. Heck, even a kid with a slingshot could do a lot of damage.

gruez 5y ago
Windows seem to do fine, despite being equally being vulnerable to slingshots and being sitting ducks.
- bigyikes 5y ago
  Windows aren’t despised, though (I love drones)
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Nor is there a challenge to shooting a window. Nor is there potential for getting a "prize" for shooting a window. Playing a game amongst friends with slingshots (or other drone-incapacitaing devices) where the one to disable the drone gets to keep the delivery. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a game played amongst friends.
    - sleepybrett 5y ago
      I was out flying with some friends in a spot on an abandoned golf course. Being super respectful of the houses around the edges, flying pretty much in the middle of the course. Some dumbass decided our drones were good skeet targets. The police were very unkind to him and slightly peeved with us... it was a number of years ago.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Windows don't deliver random gifts if you break them. [1] [1] Does not apply to professional window breakers.
protomyth 5y ago
At some point, the local Corvidaes (e.g. crow, raven) will figure out that some drones are carrying food.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Or birds of prey becoming pissed and more territorial.
  - protomyth 5y ago
    If they do start allowing drones to do deliveries in cities. Please, please, someone get a grant to study if the bird start attacking any particularly colored drones or drones that originate in certain places. I really want to know if the Walmart (probably carrying food and other supplies) gets attacked as much as say a GrubHub drone.

jcims 5y ago

I like the blimp mothership idea.

neolog 5y ago

> I'm not sure why. Small drones are 80+ dB (louder than a vacuum cleaner). Delivery drones are even louder.

r00fus 5y ago

> but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why. Drones are a perfect surveillance or weapons platform. You could really mess someone up with a drone and most people intuitively get that.

ARandomerDude 5y ago

> but drones are just inherently unsettling at some basic level. I'm not sure why I'll give two reasons, though doubtless there are more. 1. They add a third dimension of visibility, thus decreasing or eliminating outdoor privacy. Currently, I can sit on my back porch and watch the kids play in a suburban, fenced yard. With drones overhead, the privacy we currently enjoy is lost. 2. They remove what reasonable boundaries for "safe zones" we have left. For the entire lives of everyone now living, "don't play in the street" has been equivalent to "play in the grass where you're safe." With drones, instead of "look left and right before crossing the street," it's "look left, right, and up, and estimate the trajectory of any drones at all times."

tshaddox 5y ago
The privacy point may be somewhat valid, although 2-story houses in an average U.S. suburb already easily put most yards in view of neighbors' upper story windows. And any drone specifically used to spy on neighbors will either be relatively close and thus fairly loud and noticeable, or have nice camera gear that would already enable a lot of spying even without a drone (e.g. in upper story windows, again). The safety issue doesn't strike me as compelling. I don't think drones introduce much physical danger beyond, say, playing baseball in the neighborhood. Obviously if the sky became very crowded with delivery drones, or crash landings became at all common, this would be an obvious reason for heavy regulation, but I don't see this posing much of a danger.
- babesh 5y ago
  I worry about falling drones. How far above ground did the drones fly? How fast were they flying? How heavy were they when you added payload? What material were the blades? Was there any protection or cushioning? Where do they intend to fly? Above streets or above homes or above sidewalks?
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Worrying makes sense. I worry the same for much, much larger delivery airplanes that probably pass overhead multiple times per day. But there's a difference between worrying and outright opposing.

elromulous 5y ago

Do you suppose people felt the same way about automobiles before their use was widespread?

zdragnar 5y ago
Not really. Horse drawn carriages were also dangerous to get near, iron shod hooves on cobbles were loud, and they left big piles of unsanitary dung.
tdeck 5y ago
I recently watched this video which made me think maybe we're taking the loudness of traffic for granted: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 It seems that there are a number of proven solutions to reduce automobile noise when we put in the effort, which IMO is a huge benefit for quality of life.

climb_stealth 5y ago

I find the noise of drones much more annoying than trucks and cars. There's something about those small rotor noises that really grates on me. I really hope this never kicks off.

nmstoker 5y ago
Yes, the trucks can be pretty bad for noise already. The payoff of convenient delivery makes it just about acceptable. Taking the noise to another level won't go down well in many locations and doesn't offer that much more for the consumer.
illegalsmile 5y ago
I find them to be annoying too but I imagine it's the same as the car superseding the horse on streets i.e. "get off my lawn" more than anything else. When they really bug me, for the same reason you have, is when I'm away from people, roads and industry and I hear them.
GordonS 5y ago
Same here, the high-pitched whine reminds me of a mosquito buzzing around my ear - it's just so intensely irritating!

JKCalhoun 5y ago

> The systems required to make drones land outside people’s homes were heavy and Amazon’s drones ballooned to about 27 kilograms… : > “The hard bit is the last two metres off the ground. It’s astonishing what machine learning can do, but it’s also astonishing what it gets wrong,” First child killed by a delivery drone and it's over.

salt-thrower 5y ago
This. People will be using them for skeet shooting practice after that.
BurningFrog 5y ago
In the US maybe. The Chinese will keep perfecting the system regardless.
aix1 5y ago
> First child killed by a delivery drone and it's over. I am doubtful, given that there are 4000 kids killed annually in the US by cars and a further 3000 by firearms. These are relatively easy to legislate (compared to disease, drowning etc) yet are the two highest causes of death. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/car-crashes-guns-killed-the-most-us-children-and-teens-in-2016 https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/...

JohnFen 5y ago

The sound of a drone and the sound of a car or truck, even if the volume is the same, is very different. Drones put forth a lot more high frequency noise, which is far more irritating (and harder to block out) than the relatively low frequency of cars and trucks.