
Amazon Flex - adrow
https://flex.amazon.com/
======
suvelx
I've got a suspicion that Amazon has been trialling/building this in the UK
since their purchase of Yodel, perhaps earlier. A number of times some bloke
in a car has turned up and delivered me a package. No uniform, no branding.
Just a phone running Amazon software.

I can't say it's the greatest experience.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
E-commerce companies have 2 points of contact with the customer - the website
and the courier. It makes no sense whatsoever to me why there's this ongoing
race to the bottom on the courier side of things while companies spend more
and more on the website side. I suppose at that point they already have your
money, so what if this delivery experience is awful?

Yodel are worse than useless, and I can't see this being much better.

~~~
suvelx
What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free.

Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line. You
never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and hope
your driver is competent at his job.

Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on
#555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after 5pm
on Thursday.

One delivery. No wasted delivery attempts. If an attempt is failed, charge me
for it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> What I don't understand, is why I can't pick my delivery slot for free.

Because picking a delivery slot imposes a constraint which creates a cost for
the delivery provider.

> Everybody has jobs. Everybody finds it annoying to buy something on line.
> You never know when it's going to turn up. You have to take a day off, and
> hope your driver is competent at his job.

Most everybody has jobs, but most people I know don't find it annoying to buy
stuff online; _many_ people can have packages delivered to work, and _many_
people have no problems with packages delivered to their home when they aren't
there.

> Why can't you just say "I'll be at home on Thursday after 5pm. Call me on
> #555-333-9999 if you have any issues". Courier delivers the package after
> 5pm on Thursday.

Because, as you note, everyone has jobs, and if there was no cost to request
delivery times, pretty much everyone would request something like "after 5pm".
Which would eliminate the freedom of delivery companies to efficiently use
delivery vehicles. Which would drive up their costs.

Asking for something which imposes an additional constraint on the service
provider which has a cost to fulfill either costs _everyone_ extra to
subsidize you, or must cost _you_ extra.

~~~
dingaling
> Which would eliminate the freedom of delivery companies to efficiently use
> delivery vehicles.

At present ( in the UK ) most courier delivery fleets stand idle in the
evening after being out during the day missing deliveries to people who are in
work. And having to call again the next day.

It perplexes me why they don't shift their delivery period six hours later to
start at 15:00 and end at 21:00. That would cover both business and
residential hours.

~~~
jimhefferon
> It perplexes me why they don't shift their delivery period six hours later
> to start at 15:00 and end at 21:00.

Maybe they feel that even people doing delivery jobs are entitled to be home
with their family at the end of the day?

~~~
freehunter
Plenty of people work jobs where they are not at home in the evening, so I'm
not sure this argument is the most effective. Second and third shift are real
things for factory workers, almost everyone in a hospital, grocery store
clerks, gas station attendants, janitors almost everywhere, security guards,
emergency responders, hell anything that's open after 5pm (which is a ton of
stuff).

So yeah, adding a second shift isn't unheard of. My grandpa worked second
shift his whole life, and I worked third shift the whole way through college.

~~~
somebehemoth
Just because people do work 2nd shift does not mean it is ideal for them to do
so. So I think parent is commenting to say that it is possible that delivery
companies value work life balance for their employees and that is a good
thing. Market forces change things sure (second shift becomes required to
compete), but the first shift schedule is a benefit that I am sure a lot of
delivery people appreciate.

------
martingordon
One of the reasons I hesitate to use Amazon Now is that big "suggested tip"
field. I don't tip the UPS delivery person, why should I tip my Amazon Now
delivery person? What's been the norm for you all?

~~~
jonesetc
Disclaimer: I have never used Amazon now, and don't see myself using it even
though it is available to me. I also have no idea how the whole operation
works before it leaves the warehouse.

Does your UPS package get delivered in an hour? Do you tip a pizza delivery
driver?

Personally I think it depends on how much work the person doing the delivery
did before the delivery to help get it done fast. So for food delivery,
usually the drivers will not cook the food, but will put together the bag,
double check everything, and add in any extras like sauces, utensils, rice,
etc. So if the person for Amazon Now is the one putting the order together and
double checking it before loading it into their car, I would think that they
are more in line with food delivery than UPS drivers.

Also something that takes away from how much I would give is that restaurants
usually share some of the tips with in store workers who made the food. With
that in mind I'd definitely tip less.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Does your UPS package get delivered in an hour?

If what you are paying for with Amazon Now is rapid delivery service, then why
would you tip for the service you are paying for. UPS delivers in a time set
by the level of service that is paid for. Presumably, Amazon Now does the same
thing.

> Do you tip a pizza delivery driver?

I did before pizza parlors started adding an additional separate charge for
delivery service, which signals that it is now _service compris_.

~~~
djur
The pizza delivery driver doesn't get any of that delivery charge. Not tipping
the driver because of the delivery charge is essentially punishing the driver
for the owner's desire to take their tips.

~~~
caskance
The owner taking their tips _is_ punishing the driver. It's not my
responsibility to insulate the driver from that. I am paying a surcharge for
delivery. That's reasonable. If the driver doesn't get the cut of that he
feels he deserves, he can work somewhere else.

~~~
duderific
...said someone who has obviously never worked for tips.

~~~
mpeg
No one is holding a gun to their heads though.

I don't like tipping, I do it when I'm in the US because it is a norm but
overall it feels like a scam; as I don't get any better service or quality
than anywhere else in the world where the wait staff gets a decent wage.

I get the feeling lots of tip workers hide behind the argument that they
"don't get paid enough" because they simply make more money that way.
Meanwhile, kitchen staff generally work harder and longer hours and don't
often get their share.

------
drglitch
I guess i was part of trials in Northern New Jersey - a random guy showed up
in a beaten up car (i noticed because it had pretty nasty oil smoke coming out
of the tailpipes, almost cartoon-like). He was wearing an "amazon now"
t-shirt, but then after having me sign a delivery slip, stuck around awkwardly
expecting a tip. Not a good experience.

~~~
TheRealWatson
Can we agree already to not have to tip? I don't want Amazon to realize this
money-saving practice at my expense. We don't tip UPS, we shouldn't tip these
guys. Nobody tips me for pushing code to git.

~~~
jlgaddis
The trend nowadays seems to be for everyone to ask for tips. I guess I kinda
understand as it costs them nothing to do so and they definitely don't lose
anything (and only serve to gain) by asking / soliciting for tips.

~~~
ecdavis
They don't lose anything in the short term, but look what tipping did to the
restaurant industry in the long term. As tips become standard, businesses use
them as a reason to keep wages low - in some cases lower than minimum wage.

------
chrisBob
I see the appeal for people looking to work, but as a customer I strongly
prefer UPS, FedEx or USPS.

Last week I got a phone call: "Hi, are you home right now?"

It turns out it was actually an Amazon Logistics delivery person, but that
still isn't a question I really want to answer over the phone to some random
person.

~~~
jonlucc
Would you feel better if the person said "Hi, I work for UPS; are you home
right now?"? There's no authentication built into the phone call. Perhaps
Amazon should use their apps to facilitate that kind of communication with
something like a push message?

~~~
mindslight
UPS/Fedex/USPS have figured out how to reliably enter apartment buildings on
their own (USPS uses a key, I presume UPS/Fedex use some numeric code
convention). Amazon randos call you and make it your problem, as if they have
never delivered a no-signature package before.

Nearly every time I've used Amazon, they've surprised me with something crappy
and I'm left wondering how they're so popular. Recently, they displayed a
"guaranteed delivery by this day if you order within the next 45 seconds" on
the checkout confirmation. I had been paying attention to the cutoff time and
the time had just previously said 40 minutes. All the digging I did supported
the conclusion that both times were a fictional dark pattern to drive order
completion.

Never mind the clingy stalker follow up spam when you price check an item
outside of incognito mode.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
> they've surprised me with something crappy

What are they surprising you with? I've done loads of orders with Amazon and
it's basically always what I ordered. Once I got some cheap knockoffs, but was
able to easily return it. That's out of a few hundred orders.

As for the timeout stuff, they should definitely stop calling it a guarantee.
Most of the time it's correct, and fairly often I'll get a package much
quicker than it indicates, but I'd say about 10-15% of packages are later than
the 2-day guarantee.

~~~
mindslight
The surprise is about their behavior, not about items received. In the
situation I described, the discrepancy between the two times caused me to
investigate further. 12 hours later, the same delivery schedule was still
available. In other words, they deliberately misstated cutoff times to create
a sense of urgency and discourage shopping around or having second thoughts
before hitting submit. WTF?

In another instance - they canceled one item from an order, sent no
notification of such, and _completely erased that item from the order
history_. I was left scratching my head, until I reviewed emails to see if I
really had ordered that item. Again, WTF?

I'm sure they're alright if you're constantly ordering things from Prime or
whatever because there are more good instances to outweigh the weirdness,
combined with their policy of crediting people to keep them happy and avoid
breaking the illusion.

------
jblok
So I imagine the question every self employed person with a car will be asking
themselves right now is this: will I make more money driving for Uber or
driving for Amazon?

~~~
arethuza
Somebody needs to work out how you drop of packages for Amazon while driving
passengers around for Uber.

Actually - not completely crazy - how willing would you be as a passenger to
take a few detours to get a saving on your taxi bill?

~~~
wyldfire
Hmm. Sounds like an opportunity for a new business? Fluber will spawn itself
as a broker to both services -- you just go where the app tells you and pick
up your cargo (packages or people) and shuttle them to where the app tells you
to go.

~~~
cableshaft
This is starting to sound suspiciously like missions in Grand Theft Auto. Now
we need an app that shows you the best places to carjack and a social
networking service for people who plan heists.

~~~
Splines
You'll need to also provide a voip service that will obnoxiously ping you for
"entertainment".

------
eli
Sounds a lot like LaserShip which Amazon already uses sometimes here on the
east coast. Minimally trained people delivering last mile packages using their
own vehicle. Results are.... mixed.

~~~
jimkri
I had a package delivered by LaserShip last week. The experience was fine for
me, it was delivered around noon without damage. A women delivered the package
and was driving what seemed to be her personal mini-van with a sticker on the
side.

------
3pt14159
I'm surprised they aren't launching with cyclists too. Maybe they don't know
the size of the backpack / basket that the delivery person has? I kinda just
bike around Toronto for fun / exercise (up to 100kms in a day) and if I didn't
have to alter my bike I could consider doing it. Plus it is faster in many
parts of the city to bike than to take car or transit.

~~~
Avalaxy
Aside from that it seems like a horrible waste of non-renewal energy source to
let someone drive to an address just to deliver one package.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I wonder... we know two things, one is that an electric motors can get around
90%+ efficiency. The human body I can't recall exactly but if I remember
correctly it's centered around 20% or so for most exercises.

Two is that 1 m2 of a solar panel converts around 15-20% of insolation to
electricity, whereas 1 m2 of random plants gets about ±0.5%, most crops around
2% and the top performer is sugarcane which is still at just 8%. Typical diet
however would probably be 2% efficient crops, a lot of which is then wasted
before it gets on your plate, not in the least due to a lot of agricultural
output going towards animals who turn it into 'meat-energy' in another
inefficient process known as life with food-conversion rates of anywhere
between 1.5 feed for 1 poultry, to up to 20 to 1 for cattle.

Lastly while we have regeneration capacity in our feet when say running, when
cycling downhill or breaking we regenerate nothing, whereas electric motors
can have 20-40% electric regeneration efficiencies when going downhill or
breaking.

In short, electric bikes and likely small electric vehicles in general
probably beat cycling in terms of energy. Of course this is a pretty narrow
perspective. One can argue that solar panels and electric bicycles require
massive investments which is an opportunity cost for other energy-efficient
processes. One can argue that the cyclists fuelled by food will reduce their
other activity (e.g. going to the gym) and thus don't expand any excess
energy, or that most electric vehicles today wouldn't be powered by the sun,
whereas the vast majority of food (excluding some greenhouses, hydroponics and
pot installations) today is. But it's also pretty clear that powering the
world with plants (excluding oil etc) doesn't make sense in the long run at
significant scale.

------
god_bless_texas
Every time I see Amazon make an announcement, I'm reminded of this quote by
Conan O'Brien:

"Just remember kids, you can do anything you set your mind to, as long as Jay
Leno doesn't also want to do it."

Substitute Amazon for Jay Leno in that!

------
dankohn1
This is a big step for Amazon, and one that I can imagine them eventually
offering as a service to other companies that need to provide real-time
delivery. And, $18 to $25 an hour represents close to a livable wage, although
less than it seems once you take into account depreciation of your personal
automobile (which is why the future transit and bike options are particularly
intriguing.)

But, it also calls out the need for government programs to stop assuming that
workers will have a single long-term employer. Obamacare already started this
process. We should be developing analogous policies for sick leave, family
leave, and retirement savings that are decoupled from your employer.

Nick Hanauer has done good work thinking about what these programs will need
to look like: [http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-need-a-new-
social-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-need-a-new-social-
contract-for-the-sharing-economy-2015-7)

~~~
iridium127
Hopefully they pay for car mileage in addition to the $18-$25/hr... (should be
57.5 cents per mile for business miles, apparently)... because that alone
could easily amount to $18/hr.

~~~
tzier
$0.575/mi isn't a good indicator of actual cost. It's a method the IRS created
to reduce the complexity of tracking all car expenses separately (good for
both taxpayer and IRS). In most cases it's very generous. For example:

* ~$0.30 is for gas, but if you're driving a fuel efficient Prius then your actual per mile cost is lower ($3.00/gal / 50mpg = $0.06/mi; though offset by battery replacement cost, don't know how much that costs or how often) * If your car is over 5 years old, you wouldn't be able to claim depreciation on it. But the standard mileage rate includes depreciation, so you're getting to deduct additional cost if your car is >5 years and you use the standard mileage rate.

That's not to say wear and tear isn't a significant cost...just that your
actual cost is usually much lower than the standard mileage rate.

------
IkmoIkmo
I wonder how long it'll take for an online thievery marketplace will pop-up
selling Amazon Flex delivery data. For example, if you know you delivered a
$10k gold apple watch (hypothetically), I can bet you that a local thief would
pay you at least $100 for you to tell him which house it was delivered to.

In fact, my neighbour's home was broken into last year. Turns out (unbeknownst
to us), he apparently had a safe in his home with nearly half a million in
value (watches, diamonds etc. Huge surprise to us because we know him as a
chubby, nerdy government worker who drives an electric bicycle to work, never
would've expected him to have some kind of tony montana thing going on in his
house haha). Anyway so we spoke to him and the police after and apparently a
small crew broke into his home and went straight for the safe with specialised
equipment, i.e. they knew exactly where to go and someone had told them, and
they made a massive, massive haul. Imagine you worked at Amazon Flex and
delivered a rolex, that's valuable information.

Anyway there are the usual problems with this that you see at eBay or the SR
(how do you escrow payments on what obviously must be an illegal online
service with anonymous owners, and if you don't have escrow how do you
establish trust between merchant and buyer), added to the fact it's pretty
easy for the police to trace it back to a delivery man if it happens often
enough. Anyway wouldn't be surprised to see it happen within a few years.

~~~
mseebach
I've never received an Amazon package that listed its contents on the outside.
The reason for this appears fairly obvious.

~~~
tomschlick
But if you're delivering on the product launch day and you've delivered 20 of
the same shape/size/weight with the same sender information (no matter how
obscure) it would be easy to infer.

~~~
jonknee
What valuable product that's easy to fence are the masses ordering from Amazon
on launch day? Amazon isn't the Apple Store.

------
bkanber
Great idea on Amazon's part; they're already set up to handle the logistics
for this kind of last-mile delivery stuff.

Of course, one could argue that moves like this and pushing us towards the gig
economy are a net negative for our future economy. They seem to be
compensating fairly (for now?) at least.

~~~
deanCommie
My theory is these jobs need to last only long enough for society to get it's
head out of it's ass and introduce a universal basic income policy

~~~
ekianjo
> and introduce a universal basic income policy

here we go again with this... What's wrong with such jobs ? AS mentioned by
Amazon you don't need to work 9 to 5, you can just work for extra if you need.
Even if you HAD basic income this kind of part-time job could make sense to
make a bit more money that the nothing you would get to survive on your own.

~~~
jcfrei
The problem with the ongoing commoditization of work is that it causes it to
lose value. As a result the economy becomes more efficient. However the
question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency?

It certainly isn't the worker, whose labour becomes cheaper every year (there
hasn't been an increase in real wages for over a decade now in the US). The
consumer certainly benefits from lower prices. However who arguably benefits
the most is - as always - the proprietor of the production factors: ie.
Amazon, which supplies the jobs, the technology, owns the storage facilities,
etc.

Now: As a net result over the whole economy, the efficiency gains achieved
with these new work contracts are beneficial. However these gains are
unequally distributed between the proprietors (ie. Amazon and it's
shareholders) and the employees. While incomes for many employees have
stagnated for over a decade, the shareholders of Amazon keep getting richer
([https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...](https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1443533189007&chddm=1817759&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:AMZN&ntsp=0&ei=hpEKVoHeNIHrsgGsxq3oAQ))
creating more inequality. This is why we need a universal basic income policy.
To allow everyone at the very least dignified living conditions.

~~~
ekianjo
> However the question is who benefits from this increase in efficiency?

Who benefited from Ford making cars more efficiently ? Their employees as
well, since they could buy cars on their own at cheaper prices than the then
available cars.

Productivity gains improve life for EVERYONE, even the poorer ones. There's so
many examples I don't even know what kind of point you are trying to make
here.

Improvements in agriculture make food cheaper as well, which makes it possible
for even modest household to have 3 smartphones on top of food of the table,
and go on vacation more than 0 times a year.

Sometimes when I read comments here, I get the bizarre impression that nobody
has noticed the massive increase of purchasing power that society got in the
past 100 years. I must be living in a bubble.

~~~
LesZedCB
That is textbook trickle down economics which we have had for several decades,
and look where it got us. We have some of the worst income inequality in the
world, if not the worst _.

_ [http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-
us/](http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/)

~~~
ekianjo
Inequality is bullshit. Inequality even starts at birth, what are you going to
do about that? the only remedy to inequality as a whole is a Communist
Paradise, and God we know that people do not like the idea of everyone being
as equally poor as everyone else.

Inequality, again, does not matter as long as everyone gets richer, including
the poorer ones. Which has been the case. Mass starvations have stopped around
the world for like 30 years if you have not noticed, and the only remaining
ones are usually due to political or conflict issues. The whole world is
getting richer, and that is a Greater Good than worrying about the 1% getting
richer faster.

~~~
jcfrei
History has shown time and time again that societies can only survive if the
difference between the rich and poor stays within certain bounds. The French
revolution didn't happen because people were thrilled by the prospects of a
democratic system. It happened because the difference between the aristocracy
and the peasants grew so large that a few years with a poor harvest were
reason enough to topple the whole state. And there are countless other
examples in history. If a society wants to survive and remain stable _some_ of
the benefits rich people have must also be accessible to the general public
(for example health care and education), otherwise social unrest is inevitable
(remember occupy wall street?). This does _not_ equate to communism. Neither
does it mean that everything is ok just because nobody is starving anymore.

~~~
ekianjo
> It happened because the difference between the aristocracy and the peasants
> grew so large that a few years with a poor harvest were reason enough to
> topple the whole state.

Pff, looks like you have no idea what you are talking about. Disclaimer, I'm
French and what happened is nowhere as simple as you make it sound like. '

> If a society wants to survive and remain stable some of the benefits rich
> people have must also be accessible to the general public (for example
> health care and education)

The poor people have never had as MUCH opportunity as NOW to get education and
health care compared to the previous centuries before us. Wake up, seriously.

> otherwise social unrest is inevitable (remember occupy wall street?).

Yeah looks like OWS changed a lot of things : a bunch of hipsters camping in
NY with no real agenda, big deal.

------
bb101
Externalizing the parking fines. Clever.

~~~
user24
And fuel, and vehicle maintenance, and maybe the personal liability insurance.

~~~
barrkel
Indeed; in the UK, you need courier insurance to be a delivery driver. If
you're just Joe Public doing Amazon deliveries, you are potentially driving
without insurance.

~~~
caskance
If you're just Joe Public doing Amazon deliveries, you can also break the
speed limit or park illegally in order to make your deliveries. How is that
any different from not being properly insured? It's the courier's
responsibility to not do those things. The most Amazon can do is to not work
with people they know break the law.

~~~
barrkel
Illegal parking is a civil offense, and you're not likely to speed enough to
get banned, whereas driving without insurance is a pretty serious criminal
offense and will make it much more expensive to get insurance in the future.

------
slr555
Amazon can't even effectively manage their second tier delivery vendors like
Lasership in NYC. They dump packages in unsecured areas (I had one stolen last
week). They scan packages as delivered to make their SLA with Amazon and then
deliver after 9pm. And now Amazon thinks some random folks with cars are going
to do great delivering merchandise in one of the country's most congested
urban areas. Maybe bricks and mortar aren't so bad after all.

~~~
samstave
This sounds like a problem with Lasership -- not Amazon...

~~~
massysett
Since Amazon is using Lasership rather than a higher-priced, more competent
carrier, it's Amazon's problem. It will certainly be Amazon's problem when
their customers switch to competitors because Amazon is cheaping out and using
Lasership.

------
jbapple
Given that Amazon warehouse jobs include working unpaid time[0] and the
standard practice of employers inflating per-hour rate expectations for
piecework jobs, I am dubious of the "$18–25/hr" claim.

0: See INTEGRITY STAFFING SOLUTIONS, INC. v. BUSK,
[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf)

------
bluedino
This is what the post office should be doing. We'll deliver your mail to
wherever your phone is or you want it for that day.

I hate buying something from someone online (eBay for instance) and then they
ship USPS. If I can't let the mailman into my apartment they won't leave the
packages. So then I end up having to sit in line at the post office on
Saturday morning and hope they can find the package for me and pick it up.

------
the_mitsuhiko
I like what the Austrian post started to do. You buy a post locker once, place
it on the outside of your house/flat and the post starts putting packages in
there and throws the one-time use pin into your mail.

------
crymer11
Interesting that they're requiring you to have an Android phone. I wonder if
there are any specific reasons they're excluding iOS.

~~~
bb101
Amazon can probably control provisioning through their Amazon Appstore (which
is Android-only).

------
ehosca
finally as an amazon prime member i will be able to deliver packages to myself
!!!!

------
radmuzom
How does the math work out on wages once you factor in the vehicle costs (gas,
insurance, maintenance, etc...)? Is it higher than minimum wage?

~~~
bmelton
In America, generally speaking, if you're using a privately owned car for
business, the companies pay a mileage rate, which is currently 57.5 cents per
mile. That cost is expected to cover the cost of gas and maintenance on the
vehicle.

I don't know if Uber / Amazon actually DO this, but if so, that mileage fee
would be on top of whatever their actual pay rate is.

~~~
ousta
can't you remove this cost from taxes?

~~~
sib
Yes, if you are not reimbursed for the expenses by your employer. In other
words, you can either (1) be reimbursed by your employer or (2) deduct the
per-mile rate from your taxes _, but not both.

_ Subject to certain conditions and limitations.

------
shawnee_
_Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in
Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas,
Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland._

Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test
markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't _need_ to prove this will work
in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets."

~~~
herge
Also, gentrification and the rights of workers in a sharing economy are still
hot-button political issues in the Bay-area. Who's going to picket Amazon Flex
in Indianapolis?

~~~
umanwizard
I don't think that's the reason - Amazon is _incredibly_ unpopular in Seattle
and anything they do there is certain to generate massive amounts of vitriol,
so they wouldn't lose anything on that front by going to SF instead.

~~~
hsod
FWIW, as a life-long Seattleite, I disagree with this. There's definitely an
Amazon backlash (particularly in the hipper neighborhoods) but it's not
_incredibly unpopular_ , most people like and use the service AND many like
what they've done for the local economy.

~~~
umanwizard
I don't think most of the people who hate Amazon are life-long Seattleites.
You're right that it's concentrated in places like Capitol Hill. But I don't
think I've talked to anyone who _like_ how Amazon has changed Seattle; at best
they don't care.

Just my experience though, living there for two years -- I admit I haven't
experienced every neighborhood or social group and might have a skewed
viewpoint.

------
scanr
This will be amazing for the 3rd world, if it works, as postal services are
notoriously ineffective and there's now way to overlay a trust model on them.

------
brianbreslin
When amazon prime now launched in miami, they were using a temp agency to
staff the drivers. Last time they brought me stuff in a city/euro-style-
delivery van with amazon branding on it. I've also seen amazon branded shirts
on delivery guys in their own cars too.

Lots of delivery services will be competing for freelancers (Shyp, postmates,
favor, amazon)

------
shire
So $18-$25 an hour plus tips. To drive maybe 24miles or more per trip not sure
and on top of that considering car expense you'd have to pay driving that many
miles, gas oil-change maybe tire problems or engine problems driving that far
distances everyday could really start to add up.

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biftek
I'm really curious to see if Amazon will face similar local government push
back like Uber has.

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tzury
Perfect additional income for Uber driver, persons in the back seat, Amazon
packages in the trunk.

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mrmondo
I don't think that "$18-25/hr" is "Great Pay"

~~~
randyrand
...not everyone gets to be a high paid programmer, dude.

~~~
mrmondo
I'm not a high paid programmer, but Amazon making a statement like that
actually makes things worse, not better by normalising / promoting low income
rates as 'Great'.

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BrentOzar
If they're launching now in major cities, I'm guessing drone deliveries aren't
coming anytime soon. (Or this is insurance against the drone plan not
working.)

~~~
slayed0
I don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for
99.999% of Amazon's business

~~~
BrentOzar
> I don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for
> 99.999% of Amazon's business

Right, but where _would_ it be a serious short term consideration? Where's
that .001%? If it's not in dense urban areas like Seattle and Chicago, I'm not
sure where it would work, and those are the very areas where they're launching
Flex.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Right, but where would it be a serious short term consideration?

Public relations.

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steve-benjamins
Heh, the scale of the people in the image is unfortunate: Smiling, small
woman. Large imposing figure in a black jacket.

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packetized
I notice no cities in California - a simple way of avoiding the pitfalls of
having the reclassify contractors?

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Semiapies
I'm just glad nobody's complaining that this has the same name as a dead Adobe
product.

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devonoel
Bring this shit to Toronto and I'll do it on the weekends for extra dosh, no
problem.

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netcraft
I wonder why the range of hourly rates? Start out at 18 and move up to 25 with
experience?

~~~
dogma1138
Could be different rates for different cities, as well as different size of
packages perhaps (e.g. upto 5lbs pp 18, 10lbs pp 20 etc..), since it's BYOC
(thanks Uber..) it also might be related to your maximum distribution range,
the further you are willing to go the more you are getting paid since it
increases your fuel costs.

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cdnsteve
So now you can be working for both Amazon and Uber all day!

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FollowSteph3
What happens if you get in a car accident delivering Amazon packages and don't
have commercial car insurance as I suspect most people don't have not realize
they need...

~~~
chrisBob
I think Uber deals with this by having an insurance policy that covers the
workers while they are on duty. I am sure Amazon will do something similar.

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chloerei
Logo is a anger symbol?

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presty
will the customers be able to rate the deliverer à la uber?

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chenster
Once Amazon is in this space, it means game over for other similar services.

~~~
soci
In Barcelona (Europe) we have at least two startups in this space:

glovoapp.com and www.stuart.fr

Stuart has not released yet but are hiring quite agressively[1].

I don't think Amazon entering this space means they are dead but quite the
opposity. If FLEX enters the European market will make the concierge delivery
space grow. And this can only be good for competition.

[1][http://www.jobsbcn.com/?q=stuart](http://www.jobsbcn.com/?q=stuart)

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luizgrp
can I use my own drone to deliver packages? :)

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cphoover
Great now amazon get's to screw it's contractors out of benefits! Good for
them!

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notjustanymike
Coming soon to Baltimore! Good luck with that fellas!

~~~
vkjv
I have lived in Baltimore my entire life and this comment is an enigma. I
assume this is some type of jab at crime, but IMHO, Baltimore is perfect for
this kind of operation. To name a few reasons:

* Urban environment. Lots of deliveries in a short period of time.

* Amazon DH is conveniently located near I-95 for easy access to the city as well as I-695 and surrounding suburbia.

* Traffic actually isn't that bad compared with other urban areas.

~~~
zo7
Yeah I don't get what the comment was getting at either. People robbing
drivers, I guess? (Although I've never heard of such things happening)

I agree with your points though - something like this would be perfect for the
city!

~~~
DarkTree
I live in Baltimore, and the only thing I can think of that the OP is
referring to is the fact that it is extremely risky to get anything delivered
to your place while away. If something is sitting on your front stoop, it is
very likely to get stolen, even in the nicer neighborhoods. However, I don't
see this being different than any other city.

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thedogeye
Amazon might be smart enough to deliver packages in the evenings when people
are home, something FedEx and UPS just can't quite get their heads around.

~~~
rtkwe
I've gotten a few deliveries in the evening, mostly next day deliveries though
where they probably didn't get the package at the local UPS hub until the
afternoon.

To deliver in the evenings on a large scale they'd have to compress the work
they do in the 8-9 hours of the normal working day (more in some cases where
they do actually deliver in the evenings giving them almost 12 hours of
delivery time) into the ~3 hours between 6-9 (starting at 6 because who
actually gets home at 5 with commute times). All that goes to say if you want
evening deliveries you're going to have to a lot pay more for deliveries just
because it will require a lot more drivers (who will want better pay for
working evening when they'd otherwise be home).

