Awareness of the bigger picture, of course.

The future of drone-based delivery is bright, says this article, presenting as proof systems ranging from drone docking stations to drones equipped with “winch systems”.

The docking stations would work as delivery mailboxes for people who do not have their own backyard, or road-facing doorsteps, and also recharge drone batteries. A mobile version of exactly the same idea, in which the docking stations would be the tops of delivery vans, has apparently been considered been worth patenting.

The drones with winch systems, instead, seems basically the opposite of this advanced italian standard for home delivery, that had never been completely abandoned, but returned with a vengeance during the COVID-19 pandemic:

That drone, that is, would make it possible to deliver goods from the winch, without landing, descending below the tree line, or potentially spying inside people windows or disturbing their naps:

Their conclusion: “With advances in technology ever increasing, along with the gradual expansion of regulations, skies of the future will look vastly different from what we experience today”.

MY conclusion

The skies of the future may look vastly different from today anyway, regardless of drones, but I digress. Speaking of drones, as interesting as they are, those proposals seem to have serious built-in limits that may seriously limit their long-term effectiveness in the big picture. On one hand, they all seem NON-interoperable systems, which is very bad from a sustainability standpoint, for every definition of sustainability.

On the other hand, in and by themselves those systems do nothing to slow down overconsumption, that causes all sorts of problems way bigger than missing drone servants bringing everything you may need at your doorstep, as soon as you need it.