Just like aircraft they will be constantly grounded due to bad weather, helicopter are grounded regularly due to high winds, so if your a delivery service that would be pretty inefficient. Also bird strike, delivery trucks dont get stopped by that, and many people will be tempted to down a drone, so to save money on paying people to deliver goods, maybe they should factor in the possible loss of items and thus the loss of business, compared to just staying with what works, rather than trying to avoid paying people.

This has no bearing on saving on paying delivery people. At most it would be a very high surcharge with very limited availability, so it would never have any significant impact on Amazon's existing delivery contractors. If anything it adds jobs because the drones are going to have to be loaded and maintained.

They have a pretty good record of adding new jobs. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/10/01/amazon-to-deliver-70000-holiday-jobs/2899899/

No surprise there. Those warehouses must just crank at this time of year.

I did a holiday stint for UPS once. It was an amazing experience.

Heh. You aren't from NY to NJ, are you?

As the crow flies, Avenel to, say, Montauk, Long Island is 126 miles. It's over a hundred nautical miles too, even if the drone took a boat.

Nope...and clearly 'to the far end of Long Island' was an exaggeration. So, how much does the far end of Long Island contribute to the NY metro area's 23 million population? Obviously the 3000 souls in Mauntauk are not a significant loss, given that 50 miles the other way from Avenel would encompass most of a little place called Philadelphia.

Anyway, moot point. Ten miles from Avenel encompasses, well, Avenel, so the whole concept is useless with a ten mile range. Unless someone comes up with another theory I'm writing the whole thing off as a 'generate some publicity for Amazon talking about some pie in the sky' piece.

Seasonal jobs, most companies boost their workforce at this time of the year, after christmas time its a bit different.

Not to mention there will be some sort of drone air traffic issue. Like it running into gridlocked birds rubber necking at the site of a sparrow attacking a hawk or something. So, that 30 minutes or less delivery time just shot up by two hours.

I can imagine the animal rights activists throwing a hissy fit when a drone runs into a flock of birds.

Yep. I see this, too. Just because I wouldn't mind getting pet supplies, video games, and even metal CDs in 30 minutes doesn't mean it should be a thing. That, and Santa freezes time and does it better. Besides, he takes in mutant reindeer and makes them less mockable.

You can order live insects from there for the purpose of feeding reptiles and fish, and apparently fishing. Mealworms, superworms, crickets, probably even bloodworms. For some reason, the crickets are labeled as fish bait when it's obvious people are going to buy them for the sake of reptile food breeding. They also sell live shrimp. Probably live marine hermit crabs, too. Oh, and live fish.

http://www.amazon.com/Scarlet-Leg-Hermit-Crab-Get/dp/B00DTXNTQ2/ref=sr_1_16?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1386092142&sr=1-16&keywords=live+hermit+crabs

Do not order these through the drone service unless you seriously wanted those crickets that badly. Some things could be a nightmare if the packages were done by lazy people.

There's a unique liability issue...Amazon drone seeds an entire neighborhood with live crickets, Amazon held responsible for pest control costs. Bet their insurance didn't anticipate that.

Very cool idea I wouldn't use the service the first year or so

This year I saw a thing like this flying at pretty low alt with a small camera attached (mirrorless most likely).