@john if the rules for hobbyists apply to commercial drone operators as well they have no value at all. Amazon just got an exception granted. I have no idea under what rules they fly now. Sorry!
I don't care about my risk here, It's the delivery service witch has a great risk of loosing drones and their freight. Ever thought to span a large net over the street to capture packets? Now you can!
As long as the packages I order get here as fast and as reliably as possible, I don't care if it's drones, trucks, boats or someone on foot delivering them
I've got to say that the practicality doesn't work out from a physics perspective. It takes energy to levitate any significant weight to a particular height, and considering a drone has to carry enough batteries to power itself and carry a package, it's likely to be an extremely limited form of delivery in terms of both weight and range. Things get worse when it gets windy - many drones can't fly stably in a moderate wind. Of course, then you have the technology issues of being able to navigate where GPS and other radio waves may get jammed.
Countless amateur drone operators have suffered from a loss of control causing loss of the drone due to loss of signal or interference, including the auto-return-to-base feature crashing it into an obstacle. At the present time, you're lucky if you can carry a relatively light GoPro camera for about 20 minutes on a single charge.
Then we have to think about privacy, congestion, safety, liability etc.
At the moment, it's all just a novelty to try and ensure some "brand name" gets into the press. Cheap publicity from a corporate view, so a few corporations have jumped on the word.
Sorry to break the ice cream party, but I have a question. How is it practical to deliver with a drone if that drone has to stay below 400 feet and has to be within sight of the operator? How is it cheaper to pay an operator than it is to pay a delivery person? To me this drone delivery idea smells like a publicity stunt.
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