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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

As someone recently observed, Amazon might have finally jumped the shark. It's great to try new ideas, continually test new methods, come up with alternatives, etc. But so far none of these recent things since airprime and firephone have worked out. It's been a case of one dud after the other. Is there any reason to believe these things ate anything more than publicity stunts on Amazon's part? These new ideas are not any more serious than any senior project in hs. These are things highschoolers can think up. I expect a little more from the people who brought us online retailing, next day delivery and aws.

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I don't think drone delivery belongs in the same category. That's clearly a moonshot program, where it's ridiculous and has an extremely low chance of working out, but would completely change the game if it did. The Fire phone was yet another Android phone, with a couple of gimmicky features and a price that was far too high.

This service, on the other hand, seems completely reasonable. It's easy to implement with mostly existing infrastructure. The delivery trucks and drivers are already out there, GPS-enabled connected cars are already out there, all that's needed is something that lets the delivery driver talk to the car. This could be something as simple as a QR code on the package that opens a URL that shows the car's location and has a button for opening the trunk. It's a service that's actually useful: getting packages when you work all day is an ongoing problem for a lot of people.

A brief aside: "next day delivery" is hardly an innovation of Amazon. I remember catalogs in the late 80s or early 90s which prominently advertised "same day" service if you called in your order by, say, 3AM.

How do you know these new initiatives haven't worked out?

Keep in mind that it took >5 years for Prime and AWS to take off. When they first launched, they lacked many features and no one gave a second look at them.

They're an incredibly innovative company. As an innovative company they try out lots of different ideas. Most of those ideas are going to be relegated to the dustbin. But the ones that work can turn into billion dollar businesses.

Using car boots for delivery might not work with a single manufacturer, but it might work for all manufacturers. It might also work more effectively with driverless cars. Either way it's an experiment to push the boundaries of what can make their supply chain more efficient.

R&D, PR, and not paying taxes. The weird ideas don't really have to work out for Amazon at least for now. There is also internal knowledge and data being cultivated related to these 'flops.' As someone suggested (can't recall who), sometimes a company like Apple starts developing something internally so when they do an acquisition they have a pretty good idea on the model and have an existing team to integrate with. Unlike Apple, Amazon is choosing to put these stories in the news.

"sometimes a company like Apple starts developing something internally so when they do an acquisition they have a pretty good idea on the model and have an existing team to integrate with"

Believe it or not they do that at GoDaddy too.

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