That Amazing Amazon

If you haven’t caught this latest development, Amazon is developing a system to have your deliveries come directly to your home from the fulfillment center via … wireless drone. Yes, that’s right and apparently it’s not a joke. Implementation is still another 5 years away, but they are dead serious about this (check your calendar, April first is long past). They are developing a small fleet to these things that will be able to deliver anything up to five pounds directly to your door …. At an earthshattering 30 minutes from completion of the order … talk about your immediate gratification for the impulse buyer!

It will certainly take quite a few hurtles to clear before it’s ready to go on any imaginable scale but some of the more immediate concerns are certainly going to be things like, what happens during bird hunting season? How obvious to potential thieves? If you live in NYC or Boston and don’t have a porch the next alternative is the roof, door man, what?? And just how long before the NSA requires them all to have camera’s so they can photograph our shopping habits (there already doing that through the web, of course!). By the way, no comment yet from the FAA, how they will steer around restricted air spaces, etc have not been addressed and I shudder to think what the impact would be if a good copy of War & Peace where to go through a jet engine taking off …. Ugh!!

OK, seriously, from the economic standpoint, what would be the financial impact on UPS, FEDx, and other delivery services? Can you imagine if the US Post Office decided to try this with your mail? Seriously? I’m sure there are more than a few people that get over 5 lbs. of junk mail each day and if these things crash, who’s responsible for litter clean up, etc? Live mice through the mail? Better have a heater on board and those legendary Sea Monkey’s I saw as a kid, and they still sell … they are meant to swim, not fly!

OK, OK, I am having way too much fun with this, particularly when you think about things our parents scoffed at, yet came true. My own father said repeatedly that computers were just a passing fad as were skate boards, radio controlled planes, and more other things than I care to mention. Perhaps I’m suffering from the first real signs of old age in not being as accepting of each new bit of technology. Oh well, no worries, I will remain calm. After all, I have my pet rock here to keep me company so it can’t be too bad.