The "last foot" problem is the biggest killer. Getting a drone into the air and to its target is not the hard problem - getting a package safely to the ground at someone's home is.
It would require either a very specific neighborhood or a big advance in computer vision and AI tech.
Where we have seen success in this space are places with dedicated delivery zones in controlled environments where existing transport infrastructure is not a good alternative.
Also this quote: "most people are simply willing to wait two or three days to receive their package while ALL customers wants their packages delivered as cheaply and simply as possible."
Uber eats and door dash largely solve the problem that drone delivery was supposed to solve and if you're going to have autonomous delivery doing it via ground robots is much easier than trying to do it from a drone.
And I'm pretty sure none of those prepared food or even meal kit companies actually made money so once the free money evaporated people weren't generally willing to pay what it cost to get a cold soggy hamburger delivered.
Here's the tl;dr:
The "last foot" problem is the biggest killer. Getting a drone into the air and to its target is not the hard problem - getting a package safely to the ground at someone's home is.
It would require either a very specific neighborhood or a big advance in computer vision and AI tech.
Where we have seen success in this space are places with dedicated delivery zones in controlled environments where existing transport infrastructure is not a good alternative.
Also this quote: "most people are simply willing to wait two or three days to receive their package while ALL customers wants their packages delivered as cheaply and simply as possible."
Uber eats and door dash largely solve the problem that drone delivery was supposed to solve and if you're going to have autonomous delivery doing it via ground robots is much easier than trying to do it from a drone.