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These articles take a pretty short term view to amazon's efforts. They are a global company. Is it possible that the UK regulatory environment was a bit less a

These articles take a pretty short term view to amazon's efforts. They are a global company. Is it possible that the UK regulatory environment was a bit less amendable to drone delivery? What about switching focus to areas with poorer roads / delivery networks etc. Ie, go to africa, go to costa rica, where a drone will be going over trees instead of houses (who will complain?). Do not underestimate how much Amazon spends on shipping alone. I'd guess $50B easily per year. So when we say their delivery dreams have collapsed (even in an area) we need to benchmark against what they are doing / focusing on. Where I am Fedex Home Delivery is TRASH. One week delays easily - sometimes two. Meanwhile Amazon delivers. So they are outcompeting a company focused on delivery. That's a bit crazy? Now let's look at innovation. Amazon are doing lots of weird things that get negative writeups. Their key program where they deliver INTO folks houses (!). Locker deliveries into lockers. Car trunk deliveries. I'm curious if the companies 100% focused on logistics (Fedex / USPS etc) are trying out these ideas? They are going a bit crazy with warehouses and went from 2 day to 1 day to now same day deliveries - https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=21382124011 https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=21382124011 Where I am they deliver till 10PM at night in waves. They seem to have contracted up an airline network for their own package backhaul and consolidation. With billions per year in shipping - I'm not writing them off yet - even their drone program (though maybe it morphs into ground based or other approaches). That said, I do think that the US and UK markets may not LIKE drones flying over houses nonstop even if things are technically possible.

ElFitz 5y ago
> Ie, go to africa, go to costa rica, where a drone will be going over trees instead of houses (who will complain?). It’s a funny thing I only realised after spending a couple months in West Africa: Amazon is pretty much non-existent in Africa. They ship only to to more or less a dozen countries there, and a third of those are North-African countries. And I’m not sure it’s a logistical problem. In 2014, less than 15% of West African countries’ populations had a bank account, let alone a credit or debit card. And while mobile money definitely is taking off, cash is still very present and… well, most people probably don’t earn enough to make it worth operating there for Amazon. Just a quick search gave average salaries for Senegal at less than XOF100k (~$180) / month. In Ivory Coast, it would appear to be ~XOF300k. Just looking at the prices on Amazon makes me seriously doubt it would be worth the effort. And that's without even taking into account how different doing business can be in some countries.
- aix1 5y ago
  I had to look it up so I thought I'd save future readers a moment or two: <wikipedia> The West African CFA franc (French: franc CFA; Portuguese: franco CFA or simply franc, ISO 4217 code: XOF) is the currency of eight independent states in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. </wikipedia> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_CFA_franc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_CFA_franc
  - ElFitz 5y ago
    Quite thoughtful. Thank you!
MattGaiser 5y ago
> Meanwhile Amazon delivers. So they are outcompeting a company focused on delivery. That's a bit crazy? This is what I don't get. Where Amazon will enter and who it will need to defeat has been abundantly clear for well over a decade. But all of their competitors have just chosen to lie down and slowly die.

ElFitz 5y ago

> Ie, go to africa, go to costa rica, where a drone will be going over trees instead of houses (who will complain?). It’s a funny thing I only realised after spending a couple months in West Africa: Amazon is pretty much non-existent in Africa. They ship only to to more or less a dozen countries there, and a third of those are North-African countries. And I’m not sure it’s a logistical problem. In 2014, less than 15% of West African countries’ populations had a bank account, let alone a credit or debit card. And while mobile money definitely is taking off, cash is still very present and… well, most people probably don’t earn enough to make it worth operating there for Amazon. Just a quick search gave average salaries for Senegal at less than XOF100k (~$180) / month. In Ivory Coast, it would appear to be ~XOF300k. Just looking at the prices on Amazon makes me seriously doubt it would be worth the effort. And that's without even taking into account how different doing business can be in some countries.

aix1 5y ago
I had to look it up so I thought I'd save future readers a moment or two: <wikipedia> The West African CFA franc (French: franc CFA; Portuguese: franco CFA or simply franc, ISO 4217 code: XOF) is the currency of eight independent states in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. </wikipedia> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_CFA_franc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_CFA_franc
- ElFitz 5y ago
  Quite thoughtful. Thank you!

MattGaiser 5y ago

> Meanwhile Amazon delivers. So they are outcompeting a company focused on delivery. That's a bit crazy? This is what I don't get. Where Amazon will enter and who it will need to defeat has been abundantly clear for well over a decade. But all of their competitors have just chosen to lie down and slowly die.