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A comment on In Estonia virtually every process is digitized. Parent comment

Re:In Estonia virtually every process is digitized by mb_72 on Sunday October 22, 2017 @08:08PM (#15529782)
Starship is lauded as one of these 'Estonian success stories', but to me (as a half Estonian / half Australian with I would hope to think a somewhat balanced perspective) it seems like one of these 'solutions looking for a problem' startups. When we have food delivered in Tallinn it's often by an older person who is obviously making some extra cash to help ends meet; I feel better about my 5EUR or whatever going to them than to some startup. The "person in a car" solution, which can do multiple deliveries and also immediately handle at least some product quality issues on the spot, seems like a fairly optimal solution to me. Does the world really need a 10k robot to be delivering a $10 pizza? What happens when there is snow / ice / people messing with it etc etc?

"It looks like they're trying to make enough noise to be acquired by Amazon and exit, rather than actually providing a service that gets used."

I could not agree more.

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Re:In Estonia virtually every process is digitized by Animats on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:21PM (#15537036)
Nothing much came of it, but there was a Mercedes/Starship concept video.[1] A van carries a number of delivery robots. The van makes a stop, and the robots fan out and deliver to nearby locations. The robots return to the van, and it goes on to the next stop.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0YtPjQ5WCE

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Re:In Estonia virtually every process is digitized by averagewall on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:02PM (#15529968)
Wouldn't it be better to use a cheaper robot and just donate your extra cash to the old people? Is it that you want to compel all other less generous customers to pay for the old people too, and a robot would take away that requirement, which is a kind of tax?

Initially, all the extra money would go to the startup, but with competition, it's the consumers that would save. If it actually works.

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