Drone Delivery: Amazon’s Latest Total Weed Move

If you want to seen a prime expel of Weed Strategy in action, look no further than Amazon. The first to institute affiliate programs, one-click checkout, small seller marketplaces and more, they’re one of the most weed-like companies on the planet.

They clearly understand the value of collaboration and unfair advantages. Everything they do creates even more unfair advantages, that function as force multipliers, creating complete market domination.

Even now, as their sales and stock value sag while they contend with inflation and rising interest rates, they continue to innovate. Why? Because they’re total weeds, and it’s in their nature to thrive in disrupted ground.

Against that backdrop, consider their work on delivery by drone. Interesting Engineering has produced an update on the development of the Amazon program. 

When the company announced its intention in 2013 to deliver packages within 30 minutes of order via drone, it sounded all too unreal. How could they possibly pull that off? Could they ever win regulatory approval for a hive of autonomous drones sharing airspace with manned aircraft? Wouldn’t it create a racket and pose safety concerns for people, property and pets on the ground?

Well, that’s what it looks like when someone develops an unfair advantage. It’s often seen as unfair, because no one else can conceive of doing such a thing.

But Amazon won provisional approval to start trial deliveries back in 2020. They’re already doing it. And they’re already a long way toward perfecting drone deliveries, with the launch of their latest iteration, the MK30, that flies at 400 feet above ground and 50 mph—and even in light rain, which makes it perfect for service here in Seattle.

The new drone matches up with the company’s homegrown Sparrow warehouse robotic system, to automate and speed up handling of millions of diverse products, handing them off to waiting drones for delivery.

All of this creates new unfair advantages Amazon’s rivals will be hard pressed to match, which keeps the always ahead of its competitors. It’s exactly what weeds do, with seeds that spread up to hundreds of miles, with thorns and hypodermic needles filled with poison to defend their turf, with root systems that reach far deeper than other plants and freely range underneath buildings, walls and other barriers.

Amazon may or may not succeed with its industry-leading gambit. But they know they have to try—and they’re doing it. Which makes them a total weed.

What do you think? Are you for or against autonomous drones making deliveries where you live? Is drone delivery a new, ingenious unfair advantage or a disaster waiting to happen?

#business #Growth #Strategy #Amazon #totalweed