It’s cowboys versus UAVs in the California heartland, and I’m rooting for the cowboys.
It’s cowboys versus UAVs in the California heartland, and I’m rooting for the cowboys.
D eep inland from northern California’s coastal enclaves, a storm’s a-brewing. The livestock are restless, tossing their heads and lowing to themselves. The locals look to the skies for the first sign of their dystopian future. The cowboys are loading their guns with dispassion and buckshot. Meanwhile, an Amazon programmer crunches the switches on his keyboard and completes what is required for a drone to carry and deliver a bottle of AmazonBasics hand lotion to a home within a four-mile radius of Lockeford.
With only some embellishment, this is more or less the scene for an ongoing Amazon test project. A film director would include furious, purpling clouds on the horizon, but it is the temperate weather and perceived interest of the population that has this California community in the crosshairs of the mega-corporation and its nascent drone delivery service.
The Washington Post reports:
When Amazon announced last week that it would begin delivering packages via drones for the first time in the United States, the news took many residents of Lockeford by surprise. . . .
The team that chose Lockeford liked it because of its weather, rural topography, access to the highway and existing customer base, a former Amazon employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation told The Washington Post. But the team also thought it was a good choice because there wouldn’t be too much red tape.
It “felt sort of cowboy and do what you will out there,” the person said.
The company said it started reaching out last week to locals within a four-mile radius of the site to find out who is interested in trying the program. Those who sign up will be able to choose from a selection of items under five pounds being stored at a small nearby warehouse. The drones, which are 6.5 feet wide and almost 4 feet tall, are supposed to drop the packages on a predetermined spot from a height of about four feet.
It may make me a bad conservative — I don’t think it does — but I love almost everything about Amazon. Perhaps it’s the English major in me, but any company that becomes a dominant player in retail by selling books is doing something right. The convenience, customer experience, and review database that Amazon offers mean most purchases are of unmatched quality relative to price, and I can quickly return the item if it doesn’t work out for whatever reason. Should Amazon offer a tracking microchip in exchange for 10 percent off for life, I’d seriously consider implanting one.
But as much of an Amazon fanboy as I am, this drone program has to be one of the dumbest services to pride in our day. Originally pitched to the world in 2013 by Jeff Bezos, the drone-delivery concept was expected to revolutionize how deliveries are made and further reduce the time between purchase and material satisfaction. This revolution has yet to happen for technical and legal reasons, and because the public appears uninterested in a program that does more to benefit the vendor than the consumer.
The purported benefits of drone delivery include logistical efficiency, reduced fuel costs and staffing needs, and emissions reductions. While Amazon may eventually pass along these savings to the consumer, the consumer must suffer a “6.5 feet wide and almost 4 feet tall” drone plopping boxes down on his lawn. A whirring, sideways linebacker birthing smiling boxes on one’s property is not a sales pitch that gets my heart beating faster, but it does prompt the only-semi-irrational impulse to grope for the Mossberg. According to the Post report, locals just finding out about the drones might be feeling this impulse too:
A man at a local archery shop commented jokingly, “Target practice!”
Before we go too far, nothing is guaranteed for Amazon’s efforts in Lockeford. Amazon has yet to secure permitting and survive an FAA environmental review for the project. Concerns for local livestock by farmers and animal-advocacy groups in the vicinity will ensure that a powerful lobby in Lockeford will strongly oppose airborne Softsoap and iPhone chargers.
The heady brew of local politics, international corporate interests, and technological advancement under test makes the Lockeford project worth watching going forward.