5 ms·

Things like books are generally in the 'free delivery' part of the delivery market, where your parcel arrives in a day or two on the back of a truck, and one tr

Things like books are generally in the 'free delivery' part of the delivery market, where your parcel arrives in a day or two on the back of a truck, and one truck does hundreds of deliveries before returning to the depot to reload. IMHO drones are very unlikely to replace trucks in that portion of the market. But there are also people paying ~$10 per delivery for someone to bring them fast food. Where the driver goes directly from the restaurant to the customer, only carrying a single delivery. They might not need to carry more than 2kg. Of course that depends on it being safe, reliable, legal, having nontrivial range with its full payload, and not damaging the product.

oldtownroad 3y ago
The cost of food delivery is dirt cheap, though, in most places it’s under $5. The reason it’s so cheap is because it leverages existing infrastructure and there’s an unlimited supply of people willing to deliver for below minimum wage. I can place an order for food and have it arrive within 15 minutes because there’s hundreds of delivery drivers just sitting around waiting in any major city, and that system is very flexible, we can have thousands more drivers on the road in minutes if demand surges. For drone delivery to compete with this on cost, it would need to have tens of thousands of drones available in any city. How much does a drone and the infrastructure to operate it cost? Drones benefit from being better over longer distances in cities but otherwise, it’s hard to imagine how they can compete (on price) with a system that is already extremely efficient (at the expense of the people participating in it).
- michaelt 3y ago
  > The cost of food delivery is dirt cheap, though, in most places it’s under $5. I'm 0.6 miles from Starbucks and right now, a coffee that costs $2.78 in store costs $12.22 if I get it delivered. Of course rather than listing it as a $9.44 delivery fee they just add a few bucks to the price of each item, plus a few bucks small order fee, plus a few bucks service fee, plus a few bucks delivery fee. So I can see why customers might perceive it as costing less than $5.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And you probably should tip too.

oldtownroad 3y ago

The cost of food delivery is dirt cheap, though, in most places it’s under $5. The reason it’s so cheap is because it leverages existing infrastructure and there’s an unlimited supply of people willing to deliver for below minimum wage. I can place an order for food and have it arrive within 15 minutes because there’s hundreds of delivery drivers just sitting around waiting in any major city, and that system is very flexible, we can have thousands more drivers on the road in minutes if demand surges. For drone delivery to compete with this on cost, it would need to have tens of thousands of drones available in any city. How much does a drone and the infrastructure to operate it cost? Drones benefit from being better over longer distances in cities but otherwise, it’s hard to imagine how they can compete (on price) with a system that is already extremely efficient (at the expense of the people participating in it).

michaelt 3y ago
> The cost of food delivery is dirt cheap, though, in most places it’s under $5. I'm 0.6 miles from Starbucks and right now, a coffee that costs $2.78 in store costs $12.22 if I get it delivered. Of course rather than listing it as a $9.44 delivery fee they just add a few bucks to the price of each item, plus a few bucks small order fee, plus a few bucks service fee, plus a few bucks delivery fee. So I can see why customers might perceive it as costing less than $5.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And you probably should tip too.