The logistics of even getting close enough to the ground to not obliterate your package, in an open enough area, while avoiding people and other obstacles (both stationary and moving) is a nonstarter for even small cities imo. Good luck in NYC.
I think when you guys say "cities," you're talking about some kind of nonexistent arcology of mile-high cyberpunk buildings where each tenant lives in 50 square feet. I live in a city, mere minutes from downtown, in a town home that is neither big nor fancy nor isolated. There is ample space to fly right up to my door step without ever coming close to any person or vehicle that could conceivably be close to my front door unless someone were standing in front of my front door, and even then, I'd probably lay out my special RFID-enabled chartreuse drone delivery area designation mat on my back deck instead or whatever. It's not a hard problem. All the hard parts have been solved. It's mostly legal now.
Also, I'd bet that what you consider a safe range for drone operation and what a federal aviation safety official (or non-US equivalent) considers safe are two totally different animals.
I can walk down to my sidewalk and have a half-ton vehicle going 45 mph drive within 20 feet of me in a moment. There is no question in my mind that that circumstance is much more dangerous than any delivery drone you care to send coming within half that distance. We live with some very generous tolerances for risk.
But to speak to the Blu-Ray player being hurt by the drop, sure, but what makes you think every possible item to be delivered would need to be accounted for in modeling a service like this? I assume there's a narrow band of items that make good candidates, and I'm not interested in hypothetical problems with delivering items that aren't good candidates in the first place.
>> There is ample space to fly right up to my door step without ever coming close to any person or vehicle
You used your threshold for safety as the basis of your argument.
> what makes you think every possible item to be delivered would need to be accounted for in modeling a service like this?
I think this because I highly doubt Amazon wants to make the move to drone delivery in order to move potato chips, or single video games, or movies which cost at most 70 bucks. The aim to automate delivery as a whole through drones, not automating special cases. We're not talking about a set of weights here. I gave the example of a single blu-ray player, which is a reasonable item for delivery.
Even if you want to stay with your special case, dropping items from 20ft in the air, or lowering a drone with spinning propellers to street level, in a city is a issue. Companies don't like potential liability.
Still, even going 20 or 35 mph is enough to kill someone, and 20 feet is not a lot of room, especially with no barrier between the sidewalk and the car. Last weekend, a driver swerved to hit a car that was stopped in the street and struck the tree on the corner of my lot. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the key word is "luckily." Anyone who'd been on the sidewalk would've been paste.
Compare that to the rather less immediate concern of a drone that might fall out of the sky, a drone that might clip me.
At the end of the day it's a lot easier for theieves to just follow the UPS truck.
I am still waiting for Prime Now in Vancouver!
I think targets are going to be inevitable. There's no way that a drone is going to be able to deliver to my front porch. It would be much easier to delivery to my deck in back.
The "not driving" part is the key for me personally. I don't really like risking life and limb to buy potato chips.
By chance, do you have vertigo?
But yeah, a drone could get to my front door. I agree with you, though, that having some way to designate the delivery area might be necessary.
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As an Amazon Prime member, I sometimes use Prime Now to get deliveries made in two hours from a limited selection of products, and that requires a minimum order and a delivery surcharge. It's still a great option that I take advantage of. I have to imagine I would also take advantage of an even faster drone delivery option for some things: snacks when I haven't gone shopping and have people coming over (and I can't be bothered to go out to do proper shopping beforehand), the odd household item I need but don't feel like driving to pick up, etc.
The "not driving" part is the key for me personally. I don't really like risking life and limb to buy potato chips.