eBay CEO: Amazon Drones Are Fantasy

Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 01:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

'We're not focusing on long-term fantasies, we're focusing on things we can do today,' -former Blockbuster CEO

Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

-former Nokia CEO
-former Blackberry CEO
-former Bell CEO
-former (insert dead company name here) CEO
Re:Sounds familiar by aliquis · 2013-12-09 02:04 · Score: 1

lol :D
My thought was something about how Amazon would be much more successful than eBay too. Then again eBay sell stuff differently.
I think it's a cool idea :), the more sci-fi now the better! Except the scary stuff. Or maybe especially the scary stuff? Undecided there =P. Nah, fuck the spying part, or bring more Hackers (the movie.)
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:05 · Score: 0

So you are comparing delivering information, which has no mass and no physicality and can use existing wiring to be delivered, to physical drones that will fly in the air to deliver stuff. Is it safe to say you have no idea what you're talking about?
Why do people always compare apples to cinder blocks and think they're clever?
Look, hard drives got better, how much faster is a 747 now than it was in 1969?
Re:Sounds familiar by interkin3tic · 2013-12-09 02:12 · Score: 2

- Dead and forgotten bike shop competitors to the Wright brothers
Re:Sounds familiar by spacepimp · 2013-12-09 02:15 · Score: 2

"Long term fantasies" is one term, the ten year and the five year plan is another for the same thing. Essentially ebay is so hamstrung together they haven't the slightest understanding of what drives someone to use a service. This is similar to when the Google founders went to Yahoo! and they were told it wasn't in Yahoos!'s interest to get people to their destination more quickly or at all.
Re:Sounds familiar by HaZardman27 · 2013-12-09 02:36 · Score: 3, Informative

Netflix began killing Blockbuster when shipping DVDs through the mail was still their biggest business. That's a product with mass and physicality; perhaps you have no idea what you're talking about?

--
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Re:Sounds familiar by SJHillman · 2013-12-09 02:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Then again eBay sell stuff differently."
That's the gist of it. Although Amazon has a ton of third party sellers, they're still the main vendor. eBay, however, is built to facilitate third party sellers. Amazon owning drones would be like any company having it's own fleet of delivery vehicles that go from centralized warehouses to individual consumers. eBay owning drones would be like competing the USPS, with completely decentralized pickup/dropoff points. If I order from Amazon, there's an excellent chance it's coming from a relatively nearby warehouse. If I order from eBay, there's an excellent chance it's coming from across the country. Right now, consumers might see ordering from eBay and Amazon the same because they're both delivered by FedEx/UPS/USPS, but the logistics before that last-mile delivery are completely different and that affects the viability of why Amazon is looking at drones (IE: delivery within X minutes/hours of ordering)
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:37 · Score: 1

Luckily your straw man is light enough to be delivered by drone!
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:38 · Score: 0

These are all companies that specialize in information delivery in one shape or another. Do you see where maybe that has nothing to do with physical reality?
Re:Sounds familiar by SJHillman · 2013-12-09 02:41 · Score: 2

No, he's comparing "What can I do right now with the available technology?" with "What can I do in five years that I should start working on today?"
When Blockbuster was king, streaming media on the level it is now was a dream. However, if Blockbuster tried developing something along the lines of what Netflix ended up doing, they might not be seen as a dinosaur now. Blockbuster stuck with "What can I do right now?" for too long, to the point where they couldn't catch up with what competitors had started planning for in advance.
The difference between delivering information and delivering physical goods has absolutely nothing to do with his comparison. So I think it's safe to say that you're the one with no idea what you're talking about.
Re:Sounds familiar by lightknight · 2013-12-09 02:43 · Score: 1

Which appears to be arming Skynet to the teeth. ;-)
And while I for one hail our new robotic overlords, I do question whether the use of drones is really going to help things here. May I ask, WTF happened to actually making Androids / Gynoids as per the original thinking? When did that dream go out of style? If you are going to create a new 'race' of beings...are you not going to attempt to create something equal or better to your own? Ultimately, anyway. Having a swarm intelligence AI is...well, primitive compared to what the human form offers.

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I am John Hurt.
Re:Sounds familiar by poetmatt · 2013-12-09 02:58 · Score: 1

Not only that, but ebay is probably the worst offender when it comes to online shopping. The risks involved with ebay purchases are numerous and range from the "fuck you" you get from paypal to buyers demanding extra money and other ridiculous payment disputes.
Amazon's return policies are much, much clearer and subject to many less questions. They may have a bigger fee involved but they also don't subject you to terrible support, either.
Ebay vs craigslist vs amazon = amazon to sell things every time, hands down.
Re:Sounds familiar by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2013-12-09 03:21 · Score: 2, Informative

In other news, Study: People Are Biased Against Creative Thinking

--
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Re:Sounds familiar by Chris+Mattern · 2013-12-09 03:31 · Score: 2

May I ask, WTF happened to actually making Androids / Gynoids as per the original thinking? When did that dream go out of style?
When it was discovered that getting a robot to walk is bloody hard. We've just barely done it with four legs. Two legs is stil way off in the distance.
Re:Sounds familiar by nitehawk214 · 2013-12-09 03:31 · Score: 1

Creative thinking came up most great inventions, but it also came up with the Time Cube. So each instance needs to be evaluated under its own merit and not either trusting or mistrusting all "creative thinking".

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I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Re:Sounds familiar by alexander_686 · 2013-12-09 05:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

We are not focusing on the next quarter, we are focusing on the next century – almost any Japanese CEO from the 80s, as they explained investments in real estate, AI, next gen mainframes, jets, robots, etc.
The rule of thumb is a 10 year time horizon for most projects. The further one plans out the shakier the assumptions are. Which is one of the reasons why I am for public spending on basic science and research. They are just looking to do cool things – the practical for profit stuff will follow.
Re:Sounds familiar by Obfuscant · 2013-12-09 05:15 · Score: 1

That's the gist of it. Although Amazon has a ton of third party sellers, they're still the main vendor. eBay, however, is built to facilitate third party sellers.
That's the primary difference between the fantasy world of eBay and the drone of Amazon. I seriously doubt that the orders from third party fulfillment processors for Amazon will ever be part of the drone system. Most of Amazon's processing (and probably their desired method of operation) is from their own warehouses. Most of eBay's operation (and their desired method) is the seller goes to the local UPS store and ships it himself.
Now, someday, after Amazon creates the system, UPS and FedEx may adopt it, too. UPS already uses USPS for delivery, so why wouldn't they want to cut out the last mile human operation altogether?

If I order from eBay, there's an excellent chance it's coming from across the planet.
FTFY. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine the country of origin for anything you by from eBay. I was looking at the Baofeng radios and saw one listing that claimed a US vendor but the comments talked about shipping from China.
Re:Sounds familiar by CohibaVancouver · 2013-12-09 05:43 · Score: 1

The risks involved with ebay purchases are numerous and range from the "fuck you" you get from paypal to buyers demanding extra money and other ridiculous payment disputes
It really depends on what you're buying. A 'shrinkwrapped' version of Windows 7 from a seller in Hong Kong? For sure. A replacement brake cable for a Bugaboo baby stroller from a seller in Seattle? Odds are good the transaction will be seamless. eBay is really all about buying the right sort of thing.
Re:Sounds familiar by jedidiah · 2013-12-09 05:56 · Score: 1

Physics is still physics even in your Star Trek fantasy land. That's to say nothing of the regulatory and liability hurdes. However, the main problem with these flights of fancy is the extra energy expenditure involved. It is perhaps the least energy efficient method of transport you could possibly come up with.
What do the people that actually move things around have to say about this? Amazon is just a clueless customer of someone else's delivery service.
Finally, the DVD mailer still remains the best product of the company that killed blockbuster. It avoids many of the problems that people IGNORE when considering ALL of the issues involved in video streaming.
Even bandwidth isn't free and streaming licenses certainly aren't.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Sounds familiar by daem0n1x · 2013-12-09 06:06 · Score: 1

Strange how this reminds me so much about another article that came out today, I wonder why...
Re:Sounds familiar by kelemvor4 · 2013-12-09 06:25 · Score: 1

-former Nokia CEO -former Blackberry CEO -former Bell CEO -former (insert dead company name here) CEO
Indeed. However, it doesn't appear eBay has any serious competition at the moment. They're far and away the top online auction and online bank both afaik.

BTW, Bell is still around in many forms. They were split up into many successful smaller chunks, such as AT&T and (what is now known as) Verizon. Actually, I'd hazard a guess that each of those two pieces are bigger now than bell was before the split.
Re:Sounds familiar by HaZardman27 · 2013-12-09 07:29 · Score: 1

Not sure what the point you're trying to make is; GGP suggested that Blockbuster couldn't have fought against Netflix since Blockbuster offered a physical product while Netflix offered data. I was pointing out that this was false, because Netflix started out by mailing DVDs around.

--
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 09:05 · Score: 0

We are not focusing on the next quarter, we are focusing on the next century – almost any Japanese CEO from the 80s, as they explained investments in real estate, AI, next gen mainframes, jets, robots, etc.
The rule of thumb is a 10 year time horizon for most projects. The further one plans out the shakier the assumptions are. Which is one of the reasons why I am for public spending on basic science and research. They are just looking to do cool things – the practical for profit stuff will follow.
Unfortunately they fell short on thinking about 'the next earthquake/tsunami' when it came to the design of their nuclear power plants (Fukushima), something that I personally think was probably slightly more important than thinking about delivering packages by drone quadcopter. :-P
Re:Sounds familiar by alexander_686 · 2013-12-09 10:24 · Score: 1

Apples to Oranges. IIRC the tsunami was a once in 700 year event, so even if you have a 100 year time frame you may not consider it worthwhile. The human mind is not built to handle that scale. But it can handle the remote possibility of 30 minute deliveries. One is about loss, where one hopes that the low probability events don’t happen. The other is about gain, where you want low probability events to happen. The standard risk / reward models business use are worthless in this kind of situation.
I would recommend Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise.
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 10:32 · Score: 0

Wow, you don't see Gynoid written very often, nice
Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 10:53 · Score: 0

Publicly fund R&D is not for cool things...
but for the pursuit of information.
Now if scientists are just looking to do cool things on my dime.... sorry, I want information, not a bunch of kids wanting tenure, high salary, ego, and no responsibility. I want results.
Re:Sounds familiar by Grishnakh · 2013-12-09 11:37 · Score: 1

I don't think so. The Wright Brothers didn't compete against bike shops with their airplane (people wanting to buy a bicycle aren't going to be talking into buying an airplane instead). They created a whole new market, separate from the bicycle shop market. If anything, the bike shop competitors were better off with the Wright Brothers spending their time and money on airplanes instead of concentrating on selling bikes. It worked out well for the Wrights of course, but it didn't detract from their competitors in any way. And bike shops are still around; the bike market was only hampered by the rising automobile industry, not by airplanes.
Re:Sounds familiar by Culture20 · 2013-12-09 11:37 · Score: 1

"The shop closed in 1909 and they started their aviation company." -Wikipedia
Seems their bicycle repair competitors might have been happy for their success with aircraft.
Re:Sounds familiar by Grishnakh · 2013-12-09 11:45 · Score: 1

Most of eBay's operation (and their desired method) is the seller goes to the local UPS store and ships it himself.
Exactly. Also, a lot of their operation involves the USPS, especially for smaller items. This is why Ebay's Paypal unit makes it easy for sellers to ship with USPS (and also UPS) by integrating that into Paypal, so you can buy USPS postage and print out a mailing label right from your Paypal account.
FTFY. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine the country of origin for anything you by from eBay.
On searches there's a checkbox to select North America or US-only. Of course this won't stop a shady vendor from claiming to ship from the US, and shipping from China instead, but the capability is there to screen the shipping location.
Re:Sounds familiar by Grishnakh · 2013-12-09 11:52 · Score: 1

However, the main problem with these flights of fancy is the extra energy expenditure involved. It is perhaps the least energy efficient method of transport you could possibly come up with.
What the heck are you talking about? Flying tiny little R/C quadrocopters around is highly energy efficient, when you compare it to the amount of fuel you need to propel a 10,000 pound UPS van on city streets.
Assuming the Amazon warehouse is within a short distance of the customer's location, the quadrocopter has an enormous cost an energy advantage. 1) It's electrically powered, so it doesn't suffer Carnot inefficiencies like diesel trucks. 2) It travels directly between the two locations, regardless of any obstructions in the way, traffic, poor street layouts, etc. With UPS, you have to ship the package first to the UPS warehouse where it has to be sorted, then load it onto another truck for delivery. If the UPS warehouse isn't too close, that's a lot of extra distance to travel, all using diesel fuel with big, heavy trucks. 3) It uses no labor, as it's entirely automated. The UPS delivery requires human labor for pickup, sorting (perhaps multiple times), and finally delivery to your doorstep. Human labor is expensive. Amazon's idea is really great; the only Achilles' heel is that it entirely depends on the distance between the warehouse and the customer. These drones will only have so much range, and can't group together packages to build economy-of-scale savings, so the farther that distance, the less viable this delivery method becomes. But for metro areas, it makes pretty good sense.
Re:Sounds familiar by Unequivocal · 2013-12-09 14:15 · Score: 1

Granted these are controlled experiments with prototypes, but autonomous, two legged walking by robots is not a "way off" - it's been done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8
And regarding four legs - seems like BD among others seem well past the "barely" stage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g
But I guess it's all in your definitions of way off and barely..
Re:Sounds familiar by alexander_686 · 2013-12-09 16:22 · Score: 1

O.K. - Would it sound better if I said pursuit of knowledge of knowledge's sake?
And I would be careful on how I would frame "results". The big pay offs comes from the high risk long shots. Daring thinking that fails 9 times out of 10. Stuff that takes years to pan out. Which is not to say we should not demand hard, high quality work and for that work to be freely published. Just saying you need to be careful how you measure things because that is what you will tend to get.
Re:Sounds familiar by RockDoctor · 2013-12-10 05:50 · Score: 1

Bicycles will be around after airplanes are gone.
What would make aircraft go? Either absence of resources (oil, metals), or obsolescence. Though what the replacement to make aircraft obsolescent would be is hard to realistically imagine - in SF, let's look at teleportation. If a transport system which was safer than aircraft was created to do the long-distance legs of moving people and things, then there would still be a niche for the 500m down to the shops / round to your friend's house / whatever. And that would be easier to fill with bicycles (or trikes) than with cars. Or flying cars.
I wonder if there are more bicycles in the world than cars. It's possible. Or maybe, in absolute numbers, it's closer to a 3-way split between bikes, motor bikes and cars.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Sounds familiar by Chris+Mattern · 2013-12-10 10:02 · Score: 1

Granted these are controlled experiments with prototypes, but autonomous, two legged walking by robots is not a "way off" - it's been done:
On a treadmill, and on broken ground like a drunk. Not impressed.

And regarding four legs - seems like BD among others seem well past the "barely" stage:
Call back when it can run.
Re:Sounds familiar by Unequivocal · 2013-12-10 10:58 · Score: 1

A treadmill just lets them manage power cables and what not, plus controlling photography etc. That thing is walking autonomously and unsupported, upright on two legs. And regarding the drunk over broken ground, it's almost exactly what a human would look like if they had a blindfold on doing the same task.
Plus 4 legged running: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPanW0QWhA -- granted not autonomous yet.

Rivals? by schneidafunk · 2013-12-09 01:59 · Score: 1

I know they both sell things online, but aren't there fundamental differences (people being the suppliers of products versus companies) that put them in slightly different markets?

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Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin

Re:Rivals? by somersault · 2013-12-09 02:32 · Score: 1

I hadn't really thought about it before, but I just went to Amazon just now and looked at the menu. I found a "sell" option. You can choose to sell things personally (with deliveries potentially being fulfilled by Amazon, so I suppose that means that people can use the Prime service to receive items if you send them into Amazon first), or as a business. It's perhaps still a slightly different market to eBay, but it's definitely competing on some levels. Amazon do a lot more than just sell goods though..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=topnav_sell?ie=UTF8&node=2374298031

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which is totally what she said
Re:Rivals? by Trepidity · 2013-12-09 02:35 · Score: 3, Informative

They used to be much more differentiated, but they're overlapping more and more. Traditionally eBay's business was regular people selling used stuff, while Amazon's was first-party sales by Amazon. But both of them now do a lot of business in the third category of being basically the storefront for third-party businesses selling stuff. Everything from camera shop like Adorama, to third-party bookstores, now list a ton of items through both eBay and Amazon Marketplace, which is where they compete most directly.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Re:Rivals? by jones_supa · 2013-12-09 02:36 · Score: 1

That doesn't change the fact that eBay does not deliver the stuff sold on eBay. It's obvious that eBay wouldn't even need the drones.
Re:Rivals? by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:04 · Score: 2

Given that they annihilated, er, acquired PayPal, a payment provider that technically has about as much to do with their core business as shipping does, I really see only two possible explanations:
1. eBay once again is clueless,
2. eBay knows full well what's coming and doesn't want to spill the beans early.

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Rivals? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 06:15 · Score: 0

False.
Re:Rivals? by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 05:51 · Score: 1

How did Ebay "annihilate" Paypal? They acquired them, and nothing's really changed much, except for a bit more integration between the two. Paypal is very important to their core business since it makes it easy for Ebay buyers and sellers to exchange funds, and also Paypal is linked with USPS and UPS to make it easy for Ebay sellers to buy postage (at a discount) for shipping the goods to the buyers.
Of course Ebay would want to poo-poo Amazon's drone delivery idea, because it's something Ebay has no ability to do and it makes Amazon look better. Ebay could never do it because in most cases, the goods are being shipped a large distance (Ebay sellers can be anywhere in the country, or frequently in China), and Ebay doesn't ship, they just try to help their sellers ship with existing carriers (USPS and UPS), whereas Amazon ships many of their goods directly from warehouses that are located close to their buyers (for buyers who live in metro areas, which is a lot of them). Why anyone would bother listening to Ebay's public comments here is a mystery (given their obvious bias), but the press will listen to anyone it seems, even when it's pretty obvious their opinion isn't worth considering.
Re:Rivals? by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 05:53 · Score: 1

True, however the drone delivery thing really only applies to goods that are shipped from an Amazon warehouse. So for third-party businesses who use Amazon warehouses, it's applicable, but for those who don't (which is still a lot of them), it's not. I don't think any of those third-party bookstores use Amazon's warehouses; they just send by USPS Media Mail.

eBay innovation? by thatkid_2002 · 2013-12-09 02:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't think I have seen *any* innovation or indication of long-term strategy from eBay. They seem to be basically the same as they were in 2000.

Re:eBay innovation? by brunes69 · 2013-12-09 02:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

The only innovations eBay has done in the past 2-3 years are innovative ways to charge you more money when you sell things using their service. Amazon is eating their lunch and they know it. I have sold 3x as much random junk from my house on Amazon than on eBay in recent times.
Re:eBay innovation? by SJHillman · 2013-12-09 02:44 · Score: 1

I've always had better experiences both buying and selling on Amazon than on eBay. eBay still has its niche for that hard to find whatever that only one person has to offer, out of Taiwan, but it's just a niche - and a declining one as more people turn to Craigslist for many used items they would have previously gotten on eBay because CL is free to sell and localized (read: no shipping charges so much better for heavy items)
Re:eBay innovation? by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:09 · Score: 2

CL is a total joke when it comes to search. That is, probably, why they can run so cheaply - it takes a whole lot more of infrastructure and CS know-how to have well-performing search on such a scale. They are also totally ignorant when it comes to non-local buying. They think it's somehow better to keep it local. That's lunacy in a country the size of U.S. When I was looking for a good deal on a car, sure enough it was three states away, and searching for it was a royal pain because the dumbfuck Craig thinks everyone should be doing business in their own backyard where I'd see three listings in a city of a million people. Oh, and all third-party CL search providers have no right to exist per Craig. Gimme a fucking break. The truth is that some of those 3rd party "search" providers were one short step away from starting their own service, seeded with data from CL. I'd have welcomed it with open arms.

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:eBay innovation? by LordLimecat · 2013-12-09 03:09 · Score: 1

The article indicates one:

Donahue underlined eBay Now, a service available in Chicago, Dallas and the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens areas of New York, and the San Francisco Peninsula area. EBay Now offers delivery of goods in an hour, purchased from local stores and personally delivered by an eBay shopper.
Re:eBay innovation? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 04:11 · Score: 0

What about my pizza from magical sky robots?
Re :eBay innovation? by King_TJ · 2013-12-09 05:42 · Score: 1

Nope.... The frustrating thing is, eBay has gotten away with it this long because frankly, they're "best in class" at what they do -- enabling online auction sales.
I don't know that eBay felt any real need to innovate when they're just the digital equivalent of the traditional auction house, which has remained essentially the same for hundreds of years?
Unfortunately for the users, eBay (especially with the PayPal merger) has really built an "all your base belong to us" model where they charge you to list an item, charge you a (ever increasing) percentage of any final sale prices, and profit AGAIN when the buyer pays using PayPal, which they conveniently made the ONLY allowable online payment mechanism.
This winds up screwing the users in another way ... lack of options to seek recourse when a transaction goes wrong. With a traditional credit card purchase, I know my credit card issuer offers me certain assurances I won't get ripped off (ability to do a chargeback, and to request an investigation into a fraudulent sale). With the monolithic eBay/PayPal model, it's all about what the company decides to do.
Cryptocoins (bitcoin, etc.) could turn out to force some change over at eBay/PayPal though, IMO. Right now, the auction site AND the payment service both have policies against allowing the sale of any cryptocoins. However, a lot of people are interested in the ability to purchase them directly from an owner, vs. getting on an exchange and placing buy orders like they were purchasing stock shares. The current system doesn't allow eBay/PayPal to conduct one of these transactions safely though (which may be why they disallow it). The REAL fix for them would involve upgrading PayPal to accept cryptocoins as a form of deposit. Will be interesting to see if it's willing to innovate in that manner or not.
Re:eBay innovation? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 06:18 · Score: 0

So, like, Kozmo.com? Maybe I'm cynical, but I like to think of innovation as more than just rehashing spectacular failures from original dotcom boom.
Re:eBay innovation? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 07:49 · Score: 0

Excellent search for any site is extremely trivial. Just go to Google and append site:whateversiteyouaresearching.com and you now have great search anywhere.
Re:eBay innovation? by SJHillman · 2013-12-09 08:09 · Score: 1

For a great deal of items, local is better because you A) can see what shape it's in before you buy it and B) don't have to pay shipping. That makes it ideal for a great many items that aren't practical to sell online otherwise. It doesn't mean it's perfect for everybody, nor does it mean it's perfect for every item. Cars are one example of items people are willing to expand their search radius beyond CL's means, but even then, a good majority of people prefer to buy cars within a few dozen miles of home - especially if it's from a private party. CL fills a niche left by eBays business model and does it quite well.
Re:eBay innovation? by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 05:56 · Score: 1

Bullshit. Google takes time to index sites; with Craigslist sales, time is of the essence many times. I've sold stuff on CL and had people calling mere minutes after posting the ad, and sold the item before the day was over. With Google searching, you'll be waiting a day or two just to see the ad, and that's only if it doesn't sell and/or the poster doesn't take it down. Because ads are posted most-recent-first on CL, the most-recently-posted ads get the most attention.
Re:eBay innovation? by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 06:03 · Score: 1

For a great deal of items, local is better because you A) can see what shape it's in before you buy it and B) don't have to pay shipping.
These are indeed extremely useful traits IF the item you're looking for is fairly common, and there's plenty of the available in your local area. For instance, if you want a washing machine, chances are you'll find tons of them nearby on Craigslist; you don't need to look 2 states away for one, even if you are willing to drive that far. But if you're looking for a particular piece of specialized industrial machinery, you probably need to expand your search area, and better yet have some sort of automated search agent to periodically notify you if someone posts an item for sale matching your search terms. This is where Craigslist really falls down. Cars too: sure, I'd like to buy a car a few dozen miles near my home, but if I'm looking for a particular make and model, I probably won't find many matching that so close to home. Ebay really works better for all this stuff, because there's only one Ebay (unlike CL, where there's hundreds of CL sites you have to look at one-by-one unless you use something like searchtempest.com, which Craigslist hates and doesn't want you to use), and Ebay lets you specify a search radius from your location, and set up search agents. Ebay is better all the way around for these things, except for the high fees, which is why people still use Craigslist for these high-ticket and not-so-easily-shipped items. If it weren't for those damned fees (both Ebay's and Paypal's, since Ebay doesn't like you using cash either), Craigslist would be mostly dead except for its horrible personals section.

Innovation?? by Dan+East · 2013-12-09 02:03 · Score: 1

We can thank eBay for the existence of PayPal. Nuff said.

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Better known as 318230.

Re:Innovation?? by larry+bagina · 2013-12-09 02:25 · Score: 2

PayPal (originally X.com) was Ellen Musk (currently of Tesla and SpaceX). Before eBay bought them, they put up hundreds of straw auctions on ebay that only accepted PayPal payments.

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Re:Innovation?? by spd_rcr · 2013-12-09 02:34 · Score: 1

Too early to detect sarcasm... Paypal wasn't an Ebay innovation, that's like thanking AOL for for Winamp.
Really, in what market is Ebay still a rival of Amazon ? Ebay's CEO was probably just trying trolling in the hopes of drumming up any possible publicity.

--
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
Re:Innovation?? by SydShamino · 2013-12-09 02:50 · Score: 1

Too early to detect sarcasm... Paypal wasn't an Ebay innovation, that's like thanking AOL for for Winamp.
Really, in what market is Ebay still a rival of Amazon ?
Well, because of this article, I'm going to look into the fees charged for selling on Amazon. I have piles of random things (board games, sterling silverware, and camera equipment right now) that I pick up somewhere and resell, but if I could do it will fewer fees on Amazon, I'll look at it.

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It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Re:Innovation?? by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:12 · Score: 2

Are you nuts? I like neither eBay nor PayPal, but you're delusional if you think PayPal doesn't provide a valuable and reasonably easy-to-use service. You're similarly delusional if you think that there were any alternatives that provide similar feature set - or did at the time they were still separate entities. I've been buying and selling every once in a while on eBay for more than a decade, and at no point there was any serious alternative to PayPal.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Innovation?? by larry+bagina · 2013-12-09 04:04 · Score: 1

Amazon is interesting because you can just ship them all your shit and set a price. They'll store it, list it, sell it, pack it, and ship it. You only deal with Amazon, the customer only deals with Amazon.

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Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Re:Innovation?? by Megane · 2013-12-09 06:17 · Score: 1

Ebay created the niche that PayPal needed to become relevant.

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#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Re:Innovation?? by ducomputergeek · 2013-12-09 07:19 · Score: 1

I deal on the side in vintage & antique furniture I buy from estate sales. Probably 80% of my transitions are straight cash or checks for some of the larger items. I had square for my phone, but then I got the paypal reader for credit card transactions. When I ask customers what they'd prefer if paying by Debit/credit card they'll choose Paypal 70% of the time because they know all about it. Although that is changing as many coffeeshops in the area have started using Square.
Frankly it's a little better for me as well. I have a Paypal debit card. They can pay me and I can go 15 minutes later and get cash out or buy something with that debit card. With square I have to wait a day or two.
As much as I may dislike certain parts of Paypal, I've yet to find a total replacement for it.

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"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Re:Innovation?? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 11:43 · Score: 0

I have no idea what the hell you're even replying to and besides that businesses used to be able to do their own CC processing which made mandatory paypal a forced middle man for many. Paypal provides little more than illusory obfuscated security for those worried about typing in their card numbers.
Re:Innovation?? by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 07:19 · Score: 1

Paypal provides little more than illusory obfuscated security for those worried about typing in their card numbers.
That's just plain ridiculous. Paypal offers fairly secure online CC processing to smaller vendors, which should make customers feel a little safer: with traditional CC processing, the customer sends his CC info to the fly-by-night vendor, who then sends that to the CC processor. With Paypal, the customer gets directed directly to Paypal's site, where they enter their CC info (using an SSL encrypted session). The big difference here is that the only entity you're trusting with your CC info, as a customer, is Paypal: the fly-by-night vendor never sees your CC info at all, they just get the money in their PP account. Obviously, no company, even a big one, is perfectly safe and trustworthy, but I trust Paypal a lot more with my CC info than some random little vendor operating out of someone's house. When was the last time you heard of Paypal getting hacked or peoples' CC info getting leaked from there? If it does happen, there can be serious repercussions to Paypal.

irony by apcullen · 2013-12-09 02:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

Is it just me or is it ironic that this article directly follows another article titled "Studies show people are biased against creative thinking"?

Re:irony by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:21 · Score: 0

Yes Alanis, that is ironic... ;)
Re:irony by VortexCortex · 2013-12-09 03:25 · Score: 1

Well, actually, the article would be more ironic if it were made of iron.
Re:irony by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:37 · Score: 0

Well, actually, the article would be more ironic if it were made of iron.
Well yeah, but then it would be too heavy to deliver by drone.
Re:irony by harvestsun · 2013-12-09 03:55 · Score: 0

No, it is not ironic. Coincidental and mildly humorous, yes, but not ironic.
Re:irony by JazzLad · 2013-12-09 05:30 · Score: 1

He means Canadian Irony.

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"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Re:irony by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 06:33 · Score: 0

It is actually the antithesis of irony.

I thought it was a joke by sandytaru · 2013-12-09 02:03 · Score: 1

I seriously thought their April Fool's video got leaked five months early.

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Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.

Re:I thought it was a joke by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:12 · Score: 0

No one should take any of this seriously. It's all a propaganda campaign to make drones the "happy, friendly eye in the sky" that brings your new shiny, not the one that violates your privacy or guns-down your grandma by accident. I, for one, applaud eBay for seeing through the bullshit and telling it like it is. There is much more here than meets the eye.

How do you beat IBM for big iron?
Re: I thought it was a joke by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:36 · Score: 0

It's no joke. The drones have already been successfully implemented in SimCity this year. They make peeps very smiley.
Re:I thought it was a joke by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 07:53 · Score: 0

It was just a ploy to get people talking about Amazon right before Cyber Monday and it was wildly successful.
Re:I thought it was a joke by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 11:58 · Score: 0

For sure. Everyone knows there will never be delivery drones filling the sky. They'd get in the way of our flying cars.
Re:I thought it was a joke by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 07:23 · Score: 1

Amazon drones aren't going to gun down your grandma. They're probably too small to even carry firearms (and fire them accurately) in the first place.
Seriously, as long as drones are operated by private companies and don't feed any info back to the government, and they're really small (these Amazon drones are the size of R/C toys), I don't have a problem with it. The problem with them comes if they're operated by the government (either directly or indirectly). Private companies aren't interested in oppressing people; they just want to make money, so as long as they aren't making money by working on behalf of the government (like the private prison companies), there really isn't much to worry about.

Creativity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:04 · Score: 0

Perhaps the eBay CEO should read that Creativity article posted earlier. Especially the part of discounting or ridiculing creative ideas.

Re:Creativity by Chrisq · 2013-12-09 02:08 · Score: 1

Especially the part of discounting or ridiculing creative ideas.
Cue "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus..."
Re:Creativity by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:27 · Score: 0

Especially the part of discounting or ridiculing creative ideas.
Cue "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus..."
That's because for every wright brothers there are tons of people like this.
In this case Jeff Bezos is one of those planes that has no chance in hell of flying.
Re:Creativity by Chris+Mattern · 2013-12-09 02:37 · Score: 2

Cue "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus..."
Columbus makes an interesting poster boy for creativity. He was, of course, wrong (In 1492, any educated person knew the world was round; the proofs of it are readily seen by anyone who looks. The point of disagreement was how large it was. Columbus thought it was smaller than the general opinion, which made the Indies a reachable distance away sailing west. However, he was wrong; the generally accepted figure of the size of the world was correct (and surprisingly accurate)). But because his wrong idea drove him to try something new, he opened up something even bigger than he had envisioned.
Re:Creativity by PRMan · 2013-12-09 07:39 · Score: 1

Actually, the reason there were 2 estimates is that they estimated the large land mass affecting the tides and knew there wasn't a big enough ocean out there. So they were both right. There was a large land-mass that close and the earth was that big.

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Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...

Hilarious that this article appears after... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:09 · Score: 0

...the article titled "People Are Biased Against Creative Thinking".

Fuck them both by ArchieBunker · 2013-12-09 02:10 · Score: 1

After eBay bought PayPal they stopped letting people use other forms of payment like good old fashioned money orders or Google Checkout. Now eBay fees are ridiculous and if you only sell occasionally PayPal holds onto your money for a month or so. I've been a member for a decade and have perfect feedback but they still hold you money hostage.

Google I am begging you please offer us an alternative to shitty eBay/PayPal.

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Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard

Re:Fuck them both by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:20 · Score: 0

Oh, please, not Google.
Seriously, just about anyone but Google.
(Facebook, Apple, Yahoo need not apply either)
Re: Fuck them both by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:34 · Score: 0

Why the fuck would you want another Google service? So they can sell all your actual purchases alon with your browsing history to advertisers?
Re:Fuck them both by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:53 · Score: 0

Yes lets give Google more of our personal data. Great plan bro.
Re: Fuck them both by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:10 · Score: 1

eBay does it anyway, so if Google did it too but otherwise provided better experience, I'd be all for it.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Fuck them both by VortexCortex · 2013-12-09 03:23 · Score: 1

Wouldn't it be better to let individuals decide whether or not the plan is a good idea for themselves? Get real moron, choice is a good thing, less choice is bad.
Re:Fuck them both by fred911 · 2013-12-09 04:08 · Score: 1

If memory serves me correct, I think my x.com account got bought or migrated to a Paypal account.

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Re:Fuck them both by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 18:22 · Score: 0

Get over it. Nobody gives a shit about you.
Re:Fuck them both by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 06:27 · Score: 1

Google I am begging you please offer us an alternative to shitty eBay/PayPal.
Last I checked, Google did offer an alternative: Google Payments (or is it Google Checkout?). They've since shut it down because it wasn't popular enough.
I believe Amazon has a payment system now that competes with them, but I don't know anything else about it.

There are certainly challenges by jlbprof · 2013-12-09 02:10 · Score: 1

I am concerned about the technical challenges, such as a 10 pound drone being buffeted by 25 mph gusts of wind, can it stay on track?

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I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.

Re:There are certainly challenges by gweihir · 2013-12-09 02:18 · Score: 2

A quick analysis of the numbers and mechanisms shows it is not doable today. And it may remain massively uneconomic for the foreseeable future. It is a pipe-dream of people that desperately want to be modern, but have no clue about realities.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:27 · Score: 0

How often do those conditions exist? Simply having a weather monitoring station at the distribution warehouse where these things would presumably be launched from monitoring current conditions (and preventing takeoffs when the conditions exceed a safety threshold) should be sufficient to prevent most wind related crashes.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:29 · Score: 0

That and people following them and thieving the drones and packages
Re:There are certainly challenges by JaredOfEuropa · 2013-12-09 02:36 · Score: 1

So what exactly are these reality that would make this a "pipe dream" for the foreseeable future? There certainly are practical issues to be overcome, but the numbers and mechanics themselves tell me that we are already very close to building drones that are relatively cheap to operate, and are capable of autonomously delivering a package safely from A to B (for certain values of A and B).

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If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Re:There are certainly challenges by gfxguy · 2013-12-09 02:46 · Score: 1

Yes... for certain values of A and B. If you're delivering to a business in a building with a helicopter port. Delivering to a front porch is entirely different. Then there's the matter of how many will be in the air... maybe Amazon only has a few for "important" immediate deliveries that people are paying a lot extra for, but then if Amazon does it, how many other companies will be allowed to do it?
How many drones can you allow in the air? Like segways... might be OK if a few people used them, but if everybody did, then it could be really bad.
What happens when a motor fails? When a wind gust between buildings causes one to smash into the side of a building? When it crashes into heavy traffic (automotive, pedestrian, or otherwise)?
I'm a big fan of the Golden Rule ("Do unto others..."), but, to me, a corollary is also "What if everybody did it?" That's the question, IMO.

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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Re:There are certainly challenges by jlbprof · 2013-12-09 02:51 · Score: 1

In Chicago, that would be every day. There is a reason they call it the Windy City.

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I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Kvan · 2013-12-09 03:00 · Score: 1

You'd think they would've learned from UPS and FedEx losing all those trucks and packages.

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"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
Re:There are certainly challenges by nospam007 · 2013-12-09 03:05 · Score: 1

"I am concerned about the technical challenges, such as a 10 pound drone being buffeted by 25 mph gusts of wind, can it stay on track?"
Indeed, We some delivery system that can take heavier packages, multiple packages and multiple deliveries on a specific route.
Preferably one where 'neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.'
Re:There are certainly challenges by JaredOfEuropa · 2013-12-09 03:06 · Score: 2

I agree that a lot of work remains to be done, much of it legal or regulatory: on what basis will a license to operate be granted, will fixed flight paths or exclusion zones have to be established, what are the safety criteria, etc. But none of this is a showstopper to start a service like this in the near future, which was my point.

The technical part is less scary, there are already drones with some redundancy which are able to fly with 1 or 2 motors out. Some are capable of some extreme autonomous acrobatics; these are certainly able to handle an unexpected gust of wind. Some sites will be harder to land on than others; I imagine you sign up for this premium service, then Amazon checks your house on Google maps (or they simply send a drone to survey your yard) and they let you know if you're eligible. You could even pick the landing site, in a closed off back yard for example (but not in the pool please!).

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If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Re:There are certainly challenges by Lumpy · 2013-12-09 03:20 · Score: 1

Can you easily grab a UPS truck and stuff it in your car trunk?
And yes UPS/Fedex package theft is a problem.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:There are certainly challenges by MrMickS · 2013-12-09 03:21 · Score: 1

There's a big difference between grabbing a drone and a truck.

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You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Lumpy · 2013-12-09 03:22 · Score: 1

They have a self destruct and carry 4 kilos of C4 explosives on board, in the event of a sudden drop in altitude they detonate and make sure no part falling is larger than a golf ball.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:There are certainly challenges by QuantumLeaper · 2013-12-09 03:30 · Score: 1

I didn't know Amazon shipped anything out of Chicago, considering I live near there, and my package is coming from a west coast shipping center.
Re:There are certainly challenges by VortexCortex · 2013-12-09 03:39 · Score: 1

A quick analysis of the numbers and mechanisms shows it is not doable today. And it may remain massively uneconomic for the foreseeable future. It is a pipe-dream of people that desperately want to be modern, but have no clue about realities.
Your numbers fail when your logistics are dumb.
Picture this: UPS or other delivery truck driving around, Delivering packages. Any that don't have special delivery options or require anything more than photographic proof of delivery are kept in the back section of the truck, stacked according to route, and accessible by a drone or two. The delivery guy drives slow and stops every so often to give the drones a chance to pick up the next package, perhaps he helps them secure packages while not servicing the ones that require a signature of receipt. Oh no! It's too windy! Well, I guess it'll just be a slow day today using the ordinary EXPENSIVE DELIVERY HUMANS.
Consider the fact that you're using humans to do the work of robots, and now consider all the past labor markets where robots and humans have been in competition -- Like continuous process production, assembly lines, esp. automobile manufacturing. I bet you're one of those fools who would watch sci-fi movies about robots and then smugly declare: "Robotic employees are not doable today, and may remain massively uneconomic for the forseeable future. Robotic workers are a pipe-dream of people that desperately want to join the modern industrial age, but have no clue about realities." Consider that the drones needn't be aerial. Now what moron?
Protip: It's better to keep your mouth shut and have folks think you an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Re:There are certainly challenges by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:49 · Score: 1

Except that people don't fly those drones, they fly themselves. That's what would allow there to be massive numbers of them, flying all at once, avoiding each other, etc. The same as if everyone has self-driving cars, we wouldn't need any roads with 3 or more lanes of traffic.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:There are certainly challenges by jlbprof · 2013-12-09 04:13 · Score: 1

If you live in Chicago, regardless of where it originates it has to fly down your street to your house or apartment and if it is windy, it could be a problem.

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I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 04:46 · Score: 0

Even in Chicago it isn't that bad, flipping through the weather history for Chicago puts the average wind speeds at about 9-11 MPH. You may have far more delays in delivery there compared to other areas (the averages are 5-8MPH in my area) but there would be plenty of days & times where deliveries should be possible. The one thing I've started to wonder about though is altitude, I know wind speed increases as you get higher but how much?
Re:There are certainly challenges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 05:05 · Score: 0

It's a simple question of weight ratios.
Re:There are certainly challenges by gweihir · 2013-12-09 05:39 · Score: 1

You said it. For a clearly marked place 'A' and a clearly marked place 'B' and a clean airspace in between and ignoring any economic factors, yes. This is called a "lab experiment' and has little impact on reality. Case in point: There have been people on the moon. Do we have regular service there or a permanent presence? No. The economics just do not work out at all, even 40 years later. And your minimal wage delivery man will be far, far cheaper for the foreseeable future. I am not being anti-tech here. I would love for this to actually pan out. But it will not.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:There are certainly challenges by gweihir · 2013-12-09 05:42 · Score: 1

Protip: If you do not understand economics of things, don't try to pretend otherwise.
The human doing the manual delivery is actually extremely cheap compared to the drones. And has a whole lot more fault-tolerance even if he is a barely employable moron.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Prune · 2013-12-09 05:47 · Score: 1

I think much the same could have (and usually has) been said before any of the major events in the history of progress that have punctuated the status quo of gradual advancement. Just think of first going to the moon, for example. Most such attempts fail, but without trying them, it would likely take much longer to reach such major milestones. Occasionally, dreams can be achieved, and the skeptics turn out wrong. On any individual enterprise, the numbers don't make sense as the expected outcome is too improbable to justify the expense--but only when you look at it from such a narrow point of voew; in the larger context of many attempts at a time, some will succeed, and those occasional successes can make it all worthwhile. Like Browning wrote, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp". Your approach is too utilitarian. I have no doubt that Bezos has considered the cost benefit analysis, and decided to pursue this not because his estimates were wrong, but because he is looking at the larger context despite the high likelihood of failure and low practicality.

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"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Re:There are certainly challenges by jlbprof · 2013-12-09 05:52 · Score: 1

You are right about altitude the higher up the stronger the winds and lower the temperature and air pressure. Some engineers would have to determine the optimal flying range of those parameters for the drone.

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I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
Re:There are certainly challenges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 05:56 · Score: 0

Are you saying that I can't build and operate a drone capable of carrying 20lbs for less than 20k per year {flight not being a requirement}. I think you are mistaken I think it can be done for half that.
Re:There are certainly challenges by number17 · 2013-12-09 06:31 · Score: 1

Most of the problems I see are not regulatory but technical.

these are certainly able to handle an unexpected gust of wind
Please find a reference for this. My Googlefu does not return expected results. Perhaps the big boys (Plane trying to land at Birmingham Airport in the winds) will have this solved first.

Amazon checks your house on Google maps
I live in the city. Think Boston or New York. So people living in cities are out of the question? How viable is that?

simply send a drone to survey your yard
This sounds costly for the number of rejections in a city.
Re:There are certainly challenges by gweihir · 2013-12-10 07:26 · Score: 1

"flight not being a requirement"?? Seriously? That can be done for free....

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

And the biggest ones are on paper... by Slugster · 2013-12-09 02:18 · Score: 2

And what happens when an Amazon drone smacks into someone's face walking down the street? ,,,,,,, Everything on amazon goes up $1 in price, that's what. ;)

The drone-package-delivery story seems to be rather unrealistic to me, just for the liability reasons--considering the one guy who died after flying his own RC helicopter into his head.

More likely they would just hire local people to deliver stuff using their own cars for minimum wage (or not-much-more than minimum wage).

The Drones Worked As Planned by BigDogCH · 2013-12-09 02:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Isn't it a coincidence that it put Amazon on the news during the busiest shopping season of the year? Mission accomplished.

I saw my mother shopping on Amazon.com for the first time this weekend. I asked her about it (she always claimed to prefer brick-n-mortar). Her response was, "I was thinking this year I would give Amazon a try." Amazons marketing is working.

Re:The Drones Worked As Planned by Trepidity · 2013-12-09 02:37 · Score: 2

I think it's also marketing aimed at recruitment to some extent. Amazon wants to be a cool tech company, like Google with their self-driving cars and whatnot. There's a danger they will become seen as just a boring logistics company, a profitable high-volume/low-margin business whose main technology is "warehouses". That's a successful business strategy (look at Wal-Mart), but not cool.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Re:The Drones Worked As Planned by Deadstick · 2013-12-09 02:50 · Score: 1

Spot on. Just for a Gedankenexperiment, ask yourself:
1. In the week before the "drone delivery" commercial appeared, how many times did the word "Amazon" enter your consciousness?
2. In the ensuing week, how many times?
They paid the cost of producing and airing one commercial. Newspapers, the 6 O'clock News, blogs -- no charge.
Of course, if I thought the system they demonstrated was about to roll out, I'd be investing heavily in pediatric and veterinary hospitals...
Re:The Drones Worked As Planned by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:12 · Score: 0

Yes, your mom is a great, huge sample. Well done. You should tell it to Amazon, so they can roll out the bonuses.
Re:The Drones Worked As Planned by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 16:29 · Score: 0

It could even very well be both. They could justify risking the money on development if they can use it for marketing effectively. Even if the development was a bust they'd have gotten their money's worth of marketing out of it. Getting results out of it as well is a bonus.

Re:irony mod down by BigDogCH · 2013-12-09 02:23 · Score: 2

If I had mod points, I would mod you down for this creative thinking.

Your CEO by C_Kode · 2013-12-09 02:33 · Score: 1

Your CEO should be a visionary. That's not to say, you should dump all your R & D into stuff you can't make, but if your CEO is bashing visionaries, then you seriously need to fire that idiot.

Re:Your CEO by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-12-09 03:03 · Score: 1

Even if your CEO isn't supposed to be a visionary, and was basically hired to keep the good ship BeanCounter on an even keel, I'm pretty sure that he isn't supposed to make an ass of himself, and make the company sound reactionary and uncreative, in public. That's what I don't understand about the whole thing.

Even if drones are nonsense as a delivery platform, their PR/advertising utility in the 'we ship your shit crazy fast' narrative that Amazon has been trying to build around 'Prime' would seemingly be obvious.

Definitely viable by symes · 2013-12-09 02:36 · Score: 1

I'd say drone delivery is something that is definitely viable and worth persuing - getting urgent medical aid to remote or difficult to reach areas is one example. That siad, I don't personally like the idea of competitors flying probably quite heavy items over densley populated areas.

Re:Definitely viable by drinkypoo · 2013-12-09 04:45 · Score: 1

That siad, I don't personally like the idea of competitors flying probably quite heavy items over densley populated areas.
Don't worry. Quadcopters of the size they're trialing so far can't really loft anything heavier than a can of beer. This sort of service will be used to deliver small, light items that you'd otherwise have to drive to the store for because you need them right now, like a tool or a cable. On that basis, they will save money and energy because they'll eliminate a vehicle trip. It costs pretty much anyone at least a couple of bucks to drive to the store. For me, because I live on a twisty road, it takes me twenty minutes just to get to town. A quadcopter could get here in less than ten by flying point to point.
On the other hand, you couldn't reasonably send a quadcopter to my house at all with the winds I often get...

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Sour Grapes by WanderCat · 2013-12-09 02:44 · Score: 2

Translation: Damn! Why didn't I think of this awesome ploy for free publicity during a critical selling season first?

Re:Sour Grapes by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:22 · Score: 0

Even if it is free publicity. It at least shows that Amazon is willing to try weird things. Ebay wants to keep a steady course and not rock the boat. Translation Amazon growth company, ebay steady profits company.
If they can pull it off (doubt it). It would be a serious compete against real b&m stores (aka walmart).
Re:Sour Grapes by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 05:07 · Score: 0

Don't forget if they can get some patents out of this, then anyone else that manages to do it has to pay Amazon. Even if Amazon only uses it minimally.

yeah, the real future is in ebay/paypal drones by FudRucker · 2013-12-09 02:45 · Score: 1

just wait until the paypal drone shows up, you put a wad of cash in the basket, and then the ebay drone comes and drops off your package.
sheesh, i am about ready to toss the internet in the trash because of disappointment over things i bought online turned out to be cheaper than what could be found at the brick & mortar stores, at least when i drive to the brick & mortar store i can look at the actual product, when buying online all you see is a low res photo and a short description that can be misleading,

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Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing

Re:yeah, the real future is in ebay/paypal drones by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:51 · Score: 1

Well, maybe you shouldn't be buying from people who can't sell. My listings always have separately hosted pics with 1280 pixel minimum dimension. I usually don't have any problems selling my stuff, and the buyers know exactly what they are getting.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Typical by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 02:46 · Score: 0

What middlemen think about people who try to provide an actual service.

Umm, tactical tact much? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-12-09 02:59 · Score: 2

All arguments about whether drones for package delivery are viable or not aside, I am honestly baffled that eBay's CEO would open his mouth on this one...

Even if it's 100%-aw-hell-no-never-going-to-happen, Amazon's work so far has likely been fairly inexpensive and has certainly stirred up as much attention as a decent sized ad campaign (the sort of thing that might actually cost as much or more to produce and buy airtime to run), so it isn't as though they are wallowing in shame and loss right now.

Under those circumstances, what possible benefit is there to a not-terribly-clever rubbishing of the opposition that just makes you look unhip and non-innovative? Especially when that is basically true; direct connection of buyers and sellers worldwide, in an easy-to-use, comparatively safe, framework may have been pretty cool when ebay hit the scene, but they hit the scene quite some time ago and have mostly been ratcheting up the transaction costs since then.

I personally have strong doubts about the viability of drone delivery; but that made me interpret the Amazon stuff as a lighthearted ad piece, done as relatively cheap PR; but probably emerging from a broader 'theorizing about new stuff to sell and new ways to sell it' project that usually operates more quietly, and probably also has more mundane, but practical, notions on the burner. A "Bah, here at Ebay we only do incremental modifications based on short-term considerations, sonny!" response is... tone deaf... to say the least.

Re:Umm, tactical tact much? by tibit · 2013-12-09 03:53 · Score: 1

It's not tone deaf, they clearly speak their mouth, and this is in perfect agreement with their customer-facing behavior. They're like AT&T of today, what with Bell labs a mere shadow of their former glory.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Umm, tactical tact much? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-12-09 04:24 · Score: 1

Didn't Bell labs get spun off in some fashion? I have the vague memory that they are huddled under the Alcatel/Lucent corporate umbrella these days while AT&T finances basic research in contract-obfuscation theory by the nation's top theoretical lawyers...

Laugh by koan · 2013-12-09 03:00 · Score: 1

Bezos knows Amazon won't be doing this, we know it, so what was the point of the stories generated by the comment.

That drones are your friends, get it?

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"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

Re:Laugh by Lumpy · 2013-12-09 03:20 · Score: 2

Bummer, I was hoping for the steady stream of free drone parts...

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Laugh by kylemonger · 2013-12-09 05:53 · Score: 1

I think it's doable. Most of a route is going to be over hard structures or tree, not roads or people, which mitigates the damage a crash or hard landing could cause. The things aren't going to be landing on front stoops, they'll land on rooftops, so they won't make chop-suey out of anyone's cat. Looking around me, I see that every apartment complex in view has a flat spot on its roof large enough to land a drone-copter or at least to set a package down. Each apartment building will cover tens or hundreds of people and all that's needed is a flat space on the roof and that the roof be accessible by residents. Buildings that don't have a flat spot on the roof can make one when residents start complaining. How hard is it to lash down a piece of plywood and paint a big X on it? The drones don't have to be completely autonomous. They could fly autonomously to the building and then hover until a human OK's the landing zone and pushes a button. Hit the recall button if the landing site looks sketchy or there's someone down there with a shotgun.
Re:Laugh by koan · 2013-12-09 07:42 · Score: 1

That's because you have little to no real life experience, the legal liability alone will stop it form happening.
In the end the real reason you should be against it is it takes away jobs, and people should worry about that now before they are completely replaced.

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"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Re:Laugh by kylemonger · 2013-12-09 09:37 · Score: 1

Amazon will spin off another corporate entity for drone delivery service, limiting liabiity. Liability won't be any worse than the truck fleet they already have delivering groceries. The people whose jobs will be made redundant are couriers, people risking their bodies on bicycles in city traffic. Those are jobs well lost. We don't need to legislate things like drones to protect jobs, we need a social contract that protects people whose skills are suddenly made obsolete. In other words, we have to agree to treat people better than we treat machines.
Re: Laugh by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 09:51 · Score: 0

Then we have already failed

Stay in the 90s, eBay by alexjplant · 2013-12-09 03:06 · Score: 2

Even if Amazon is just pretending to be relevant in this regard at least they can claim a successful business model. I used to use eBay religiously (even for new goods) until I got Amazon Prime and realized that the subscription fee and price premium for new goods was well worth the lack of hassle with slow shipping, bad listings, and PayPal's godawful dispute resolution. Whenever I think of eBay I think of the Clinton administration.

Correction by wonkey_monkey · 2013-12-09 03:08 · Score: 1

Amazon drones are Christmas marketing ploy

FTFY.

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systemd is Roko's Basilisk.

So..., you're saying... by Jawnn · 2013-12-09 03:10 · Score: 2

...that the emperor has no clothes? And that the whole drone thing is just holiday publicity stunt? Not Amazon, surely. /sarcasm

Best of both worlds.. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:10 · Score: 0

Has Amazon really thought this through??
Just think of all those stolen Amazon drones that will be hawked on eBay.

someday soon the crazy anthrax people by xmousex · 2013-12-09 03:11 · Score: 2

are going to throw a party all over this country. once drones are the accepted process, anyone with a radio and a look alike amazombie will be able to deposit malicious packages just about anywhere, fly it into a river, and be out of there before something blows up. I will feel slightly better receiving a package that i know was at least exposed to one other person before me.

Re:someday soon the crazy anthrax people by keytoe · 2013-12-09 05:58 · Score: 1

are going to throw a party all over this country. once drones are the accepted process, anyone with a radio and a look alike amazombie will be able to deposit malicious packages just about anywhere, fly it into a river, and be out of there before something blows up. I will feel slightly better receiving a package that i know was at least exposed to one other person before me.
How is this any different than throwing on some brown shorts and shirt, grabbing a clipboard and doing it yourself?
Taking something mundane and adding "... with a drone" doesn't automatically make it novel.

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Culture is more than commerce
Re:someday soon the crazy anthrax people by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 06:42 · Score: 0

less likely to be identified later if it's a drone and not you in a ups uniform carrying the package
Re:someday soon the crazy anthrax people by xmousex · 2013-12-09 07:51 · Score: 1

the operating range of a suspect in brown shorts and shirt outfit delivering a package manually is immediate proximity only, with likely video surveillance and eye witness identification.
the delivery range of a rogue drone carrying a dirty bomb or biological agent is 10 miles.
im pretty sure there is a difference

In related news ... by PPH · 2013-12-09 03:16 · Score: 1

... eBay proposes delivering packages from the nearest hatch accessing their Morlock underground cave network.

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Have gnu, will travel.

FTFY by Lumpy · 2013-12-09 03:17 · Score: 1

'We're not focusing on long-term fantasies, we're focusing on profits we can get today,'

Selling on ebay they get 11% of your sale price after "fees" and then their Paypal double dip fees. and I just received an email as a power seller that the rates will be going up to basically 14% in 2014

Ebay is doing nothing but riding the money wave. They do not do anything, they have not introduced anything to help sellers or buyers, in fact it's become a turdfest where it is only worth selling on if you have a hard to find item. Common items I sell on Amazon with better protections and lower rates.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

In other words: by DiEx-15 · 2013-12-09 03:18 · Score: 1

BAAAAWWW! We didn't think of this first! Now we aren't going to get any money from this idea! Let's blast the idea so people don't use it! Whhhaaahhh!!!

- eBay CEO John Donahue (behind closed doors)

eBay Status by Azure+Flash · 2013-12-09 03:36 · Score: 1

[ ] Not Told
[X] Told
[X] Just-in-told
[X] Retold Over Investment
[X] United Postold Service
[X] Return Marchandise Autoldization
[X] Jeff Betolds

Amazon vs eBay by ArcadeMan · 2013-12-09 03:47 · Score: 1

If I want to buy something new and consumer-grade such as a DVD, games, etc - I go to Amazon.

If I want to buy something rare, used or low-cost specialized hardware/electronics sold directly from China such as SPI-driven LCDs - I go to eBay.

Anyway they're not competing on the same level. Amazon is testing out delivery by drones for the future but eBay is already installing delivery tubes in my neighbourhood. I guess Futurama was right after all!

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Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins

Slashdot is butthurt again by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:53 · Score: 0

Someone poured cold water on their technogeek fantasies with some reality. Just like you will never be able to print a smartphone with a 3d printer, the other slashdot techno fantasy, the power requirements of flying a lightweight drone helicopter carrying a payload multiple miles exceeds what is possible with current battery technology. And no, battery technology is not going to be making any big leaps anytime within the next few decades either.

Teletransport by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 03:57 · Score: 0

If I would eBay's CEO, playing the very same BS cards, I would have said eBay will deliver packages with TeleTransport by 2020.
Just to step up the BS scale a notch.

That quote will be remembered just like.. by fred911 · 2013-12-09 04:11 · Score: 1

640k is enough memory... Gates

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

X is just a fantasy......... by Dega704 · 2013-12-09 04:21 · Score: 1

Famous last words for so many big companies............

Amazon Drones... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 04:28 · Score: 1

...Like skeet shooting but with prizes! :D

Re:Amazon Drones... by kylemonger · 2013-12-09 06:09 · Score: 1

Aim well. In Washington state you're allowed to use deadly force to prevent the commission of a felony, and that includes property crimes. So the drone's escort gunships might just shoot back at you if you miss.

THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2013-12-09 04:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Was NOT to propose a "Drone Delivery Service" -

Instead it is a PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION.

- 1 Normalize and socialize the idea of drones as a common, novel feature of US civilian airspace. Contextualize debate on practical advantage over risks and intrusion.

- 2 Position Amazon as a fixture in people's discourse and attention. First, during an expected competitive and difficult shopping season and ultimately for long-term.

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"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."

Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by Cid+Highwind · 2013-12-09 06:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

You missed the major one:
- 0 Counter negative points raised in "The Everything Store" and recent news stories about poor working conditions in Amazon warehouses. Steer the narrative about Amazon toward how they're building the shiny future instead of how they're out-Walmarting Walmart.

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0 1 - just my two bits
Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 08:45 · Score: 0

Was NOT to propose a "Drone Delivery Service" -
Once you get outside of countries with highly developed and dense road networks, delivery by drone makes lots of sense. Did you really think you were Amazon's next huge source of growth? You were relevant a decade ago. Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Sub-Saharan Africa are the next horizon.
Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2013-12-09 09:27 · Score: 1

Walmart to Install Surface-to-Air Missiles on Store Rooftops to Shoot Down Amazon Drones

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"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by rainmouse · 2013-12-09 11:01 · Score: 1

3 - Get Amazon all over the global news around the time of the Christmas shopping rush.
Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2013-12-09 13:45 · Score: 1

That's a better way to state my #2. :-)

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"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Re:THE POINT OF THE AMAZON ANNOUNCEMENT by BalthCat · 2013-12-15 23:44 · Score: 1

Myself, I figured something like #1, that they were getting their foot in the door before the TSA tries to shut it (or claim it's already shut), even temporarily, making it an ordeal of inertia to open again.

Doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 05:54 · Score: 0

Amazon: "I can jump that on my skateboard"

Ebay: "you're gonna end up in the ditch"

Either way, we wanna see it happen.

So, he's saying that by Mr+Bubble · 2013-12-09 05:56 · Score: 1

they are skating to where the puck IS?

Personally, I put my money in an elaborate system of pneumatic tubes. Bring on the tube technology!

--
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"

eBay's right - yet wrong by kangsterizer · 2013-12-09 06:06 · Score: 1

As you guys point out - Amazon gets a much better *marketing* from claiming they want drones. Doesn't matter if they can do it or not (obviously as of today this is technologically impossible to have this work in a reliable fashion, and probably not in 5 years either).

And in that, they're right, ie, they're getting fame, customers, money, even thus it's a cheap marketing lie. So since money is all that matters, they're "right".

However, eBay's right too, drones are currently a fantasy, and focusing on what you can do today is what Amazon does too. What a company does and communicate is often very different. eBay's CEO being honest is what i'd like from every company, but isn't what is going to work for them unfortunately.

What happens when you get too big by WaffleMonster · 2013-12-09 06:07 · Score: 1

More often than not I tend to get creeped out when companies become so big they start to see value in tweaking the rest of the world to give themselves advantage on anything from lobbying/regulatory capture, having their way with standards organizations and invading or buying out entire verticals just to control and or add barriers to meaningful competition.

In the case of Amazon I would much prefer to see the FEDEXs of the world working on flying robots and self driving delivery vehicles. If there is a need for that by all means use your weight to communicate your needs or collaborate with your vendors.

Look what happened after Ebay bought out PayPal for another example of what happens when you get too big.

As for Ebay and delivery why would they care? Does ebay even have a single warehouse delivering anything to anyone? As far as I know it is the ebay users and their resellers that manage all of this. All ebay needs to do is add a few ultra fast shipping speed categories to their backend systems. They don't need to actually implement them.

Let's suppose the challenges are overcome by jlbprof · 2013-12-09 06:08 · Score: 1

Several types of systems could be developed including competing ones. But if you think about this, it could backfire on Amazon, because if there are local operators that offer the service to local merchants, and since Amazon now has to pay sales tax, the local merchants may be able to compete with Amazon.

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I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.

They say that about drone frigates too by WillAffleckUW · 2013-12-09 07:02 · Score: 1

They still exist, we just don't admit it.

Just like we don't admit we have civilian cargo ship drone packages on certain routes.

Drones are small, and easily deployed.

The problem with Amazon is flying them in US skies means people are going to sue you when you kill their kid or their pet when the drone drops the package or hits a crow and falls into something.

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-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --

publicity stunt by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 07:13 · Score: 0

You think it's a coincidence the story aired the Sunday right before Cyber Monday? Even if they had to invest a smile of cash to build a prototype, the publicity they've gotten out of the story easily justified it.

There's a whole list of problems to overcome related to delivery drones. I seriously doubt we'll see these in wide use in my lifetime.

I stopped using both ebay and paypal by Dan667 · 2013-12-09 07:30 · Score: 1

Amazon stock is up almost 50% this year and ebay stock is down 5%. Stock market does not mirror performance, but antidotally I stopped using of both ebay and paypal due to their abusive practices. IMHO, they are a corpse like microsoft that is eating itself.

Reminds me of the quote... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 07:45 · Score: 0

"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. they may be summed up by the phrases: It’s completely impossible, it’s possible, but it’s not worth doing, I said it was a good idea all along." – Arthur C Clarke

Re:Reminds me of the quote... by Deadstick · 2013-12-09 08:14 · Score: 1

They laughed at Robert Fulton...
And they laughed at the Wright Brothers...
And they laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Yep, C-level's are SOOO much smarter than . . . by bogidu · 2013-12-09 08:17 · Score: 1

the rest of us!

"We're not focusing on long-term fantasies, we're focusing on things we can do today," John Donahue said in a televised interview with Bloomberg TV Friday morning.

Ouch, his tie must be too tight. 20 years ago, Ebay was a "long-term fantasy". Imagine, a VIRTUAL AUCTION house where anyone on the planet can throw money at you!

Idiot suit.

You missed a HUGE innovation! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 09:52 · Score: 0

A seller must wait 60 days now before any funds end up in a seller's bank account.

Picture this scenario: You as a seller are forced to sell your prized possession for a few thousand $$ on ebay- auction ends on the 23rd of the month, and you NEED to pay your rent on the 1st of the month.

Tough shit! you aren't going to be paying any rent! Instead - your few thousand will sit in a Ebay/Paypal bank account of 60 days accruing intrests for Ebay/Paypal. At the end of the 60 days you might get your money - butby this time you are probably homeless and can't even collect the money that's rightfully yours.

Yep that's ebay now. Fuck ebay, paypal, and that entire ecosystem of shit.

Re:You missed a HUGE innovation! by Grishnakh · 2013-12-11 06:25 · Score: 1

What the hell are you talking about? This is completely false; as soon as a buyer transfers money into your Paypal account, you have immediate access to it. (It'll take a few days to ACH transfer it into a different bank account, but that's not their fault; there's faster ways of getting to it, including by using a Paypal debit card linked to your account.)

eBay is still around? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 09:56 · Score: 0

Why?

Amazon are not the only ones by Plumpaquatsch · 2013-12-09 10:09 · Score: 1

http://gigaom.com/2013/12/09/germanys-dhl-delivers-medicine-by-drone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+(GigaOM%3A+Tech)

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Of course news about a fake are Fake News.

it's by antdude · 2013-12-10 02:29 · Score: 1

FYI, it's = it is/has. You're welcome. ;)

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

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eBay CEO: Amazon Drones Are Fantasy

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