Anytime you think, "ah, the solution is this thing from Ready Player One", step back and remember the following:

- that book was set in a shitty gig economy dystopia, even if the main character managed to personally get rich in the end

- that book was fucking terrible and it's frankly embarrassing that grown adults make reference to it in a positive manner

You know what’s even worse? The audiobook version, narrated by Will Wheaton.

I had to watch an ad before I could watch that company's commercial.

I suspect this still only works if you can utilize the capacity and have simultaneous deliveries, which would required a cluster of deliveries, thus likely not good for rural areas.

>I suspect this still only works if you can utilize the capacity and have simultaneous deliveries

You still avoid the inefficient stop-and-go driving and the time-wasting "last 100 feet" walk. Sure it's not as superior in rural areas vs suburban, but with low enough overhead you could still beat the traditional truck.

Naturally if the drone gear cost millions of dollars and took up half the truck, then I'd agree it wouldn't be worth it. In reality I don't think that's the tradeoff though.

UPS demoed an interesting "roof mounted" hardware approach (ignoring the rest of the operational depiction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBu2glKHTA

The numbers I've seen don't pencil out costwise even without assuming the more fuel efficient hybrid and electric trucks becoming popular.

Can you share why you think it makes sense cost wise?

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