The real problem with smart package delivery systems
is the same thing that makes them so popular.
In New York City, the average 200-unit building receives 70 packages a day and it can take 12 to 20 hours for residents to pick them up: “Next thing you know, there’s a hundred unclaimed boxes”.
Unsurprisingly, many buildings in New York have responded by going high tech: “Locker systems with real-time notifications, lobby screens showing “package” emojis for each apartment and front door systems that allow residents to let delivery people into their homes remotely are helping New Yorkers take back their hallways - and get their stuff on time."
What about the packages VOLUME, and complete COSTS?
With systems like those “We come home from work, and there our gifts are, as if magicked into being”.
The cost of that magic, however, is to preserve, if not increase even more:
- compulsive shopping
- labor violations and street accidents (until they move to drones, of course)
- pollution
Home delivery has a place in the world, of course. But maybe it should be the exception. Especially fast home delivery. The smartest, really smart delivery systems may be the ones based on:
- worldwide open standards
- NEIGHBORHOOD-LEVEL shipping points, as currently tested in Italy
- above all, SLOW deliveries.
COMPARE THIS WITH ITALY…
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
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