And said box would have to be bolted down and made of very strong materials. Very expensive.

And letting a delivery person into your house is a very bad idea, even if they don't make it past the threshold. They see that 100" TV and then their buddies break into your house 2 weeks later.

Good luck getting Police to look into it.

Amazon is trying to cut losses from stolen packages, and get you to pay for it. Via buying one of their cameras. Unless you have Cameras covering every inch of your property. And they don't allow other brands of Cameras.

Just having packages hidden in a box that is always out there rather than in the open will have an effect. A lock that slows them down by several minutes would also help. A lot of these type of crimes are largely crimes of opportunity.

> Does seem like a bad way to run a business.

This is how businesses maximize profits nowadays. Nearly all new jobs since the recession have been unstable contract jobs, and nearly 40% of workers nowadays don't have stable jobs[1]. This is why even though unemployment is incredibly low, inflation has been flat: workers lack the leverage required to experience wage gains.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2015/05/25/shocke...

The humans are only there until they figure out robots.

Then they can rejoin the poorly paying gig economy and hopefully get paid enough to have things delivered to them by their replacements.

> Seems strange for amazon to propose entering into a house instead of just selling a locked box that you and deliveries could use.

I strongly suspect that streamlining deliveries is a pleasant side effect rather than the intended goal of this.

This applies to almost all of the gig economy.

It's a shame for workers that delivery driving is now a gig. Historically, it was a stable, good paying career, something to work towards within USPS.

But hey, at least shareholders are getting a better value.

edit: It seems like any comment not intensely pro-capitalistic ends up downvoted. You folks need to realize that while capitalism is a fantastic method of maximizing wealth generation, it's not perfect.

Our lower-middle class is shrinking while our lower class is growing because of the loss of jobs like these. The fact that I'm getting downvoted for pointing this out is a bit surprising, given the generally levelheaded comment section this site usually provides.

Amazon PE ratio is insanely high. Even shareholders aren’t getting better value.

Amazon is abusing drivers, fulfillment workers, and AWS engineers (so I’ve heard) because they can get away with it. It’s a shame really.

I would argue that they are. Amazon has low profits because they blow all of them into capital expansion, not because they aren't making them.

As in all labor intensive industries that require no particular skill. Turnover is not an issue, it's a consequence.

You can't significantly improve the job and the work conditions, it is what it is. You can't pay more, that'd impact costs too significantly.

The consequence is high turnover and you can't fix the root cause. Lucky you, there is an endless supply of fresh blood that can and are willing to do the job so it's a viable business model.

You seem to forget there were and are companies like fedex and ups that deliver things just fine and don't have these issues. It might have something to do with how they train and pay their employees.

Let's not idealize the situation at other delivery companies. Delivering is not a dream job.

It'd be interesting to see how much business is B2B and repeated addresses for UPS/Fedex vs Amazon.

Amazon is likely to be distinct. High amount of one off consumers. Varying routes every day. Customers being away during delivery. Exactly what ruins a delivery company.

A number of people have already attacked one of your fundamental assumptions about low skilled labor. I think one way to say it is you're making the assumption that what you call "low skilled labor" is in fact "zero skill labor." I think you underestimate the level of skill required to deliver goods efficiently and quickly, and yes, the cost that is involved in it. (to be fair, you seem to be saying that I am overestimating that skill in your first sentence.)

Also, "one off consumers. Varying routes every day." Well, delivery company employees will have precisely fewer of those because their job is to deliver things, seems like the reason not to trust Amazon drivers over Fedex.

>Let's not idealize the situation at other deliveries company. Delivering is not a dream job.

It's not your dream job. My last cab driver immigrated 16 years ago and has been driving 5pm-5am shift for the last 7 years. Full time delivery is a dream in comparison. I don't think he could send his kids to college on Uber.

It's healthy compared to desk work, doesn't require any extensive training, and relatively low stress.

Be cautious when predicting the behavior of others.

Low stress?

Did you ever have to deliver to someone who is away? to an address that doesn't exist? to an address that exists but is located at the wrong place? what when it's inaccessible or has no bell?

That's what you get to deal with every single day, you never know where you gonna be or what's gonna go wrong the next hour. Meanwhile, your delivery time is accounted and customers can complain back about you for anything.

> Delivering is not a dream job.

Maybe not now, but it used to be. You say that the job and work conditions can't be improved, but the fact that they were better before proves that your statement is false.

What the hell are you talking about? Did you ever do delivery work? It's simply not great.

I'll reckon, any job was better 50 years ago when rent was a fraction of a salary and you could provide for a family on a single income.

On a single blue-collar income, no less. My father, a lineman for Ma Bell, purchased a house and 5 acres of land for $100,000 (in today's funds), and is still receiving retirement funds. He was forced to retire at 50 - a dream many of us today will never realize.