Yeah, I live in a relatively rural part of the US and can drive hundreds of pounds of stuff at 60 miles an hour to almost anywhere within a few hundred miles.
That doesn't eliminate rapid delivery of small packages as a business model, but it really constrains what is worth shipping using a drone that can carry a couple of pounds.
Right. But a lot of Amazon deliveries are single packages, and probably most of them are within the ~4 pound weight limit of current Zipline drones. 80mph, straight-line one-way delivery without requiring a dedicated human driver is pretty effective for rural delivery (and the drones have a range of 300km per charger, currently). But it really is more like Starlink than fiber. It's better suited to underserved rural areas where it's impractical to do single-package delivery.
And I think the current ~$15-20/delivery price for Zipline is too high to be terribly practical for most items, but in a rush (and given 24/7 availability), it's absolutely worth it. I can think of many personal instances where a $15-20 delivery charge would easily be worth it to trim hours off of delivery time.
I think at this point it's likely safer (i.e. to pedestrians, etc) than delivering the same item via truck. I really do think this has a future, and I'm glad that they've reached a sustainable level of operations in Rwanda and Ghana.
That doesn't eliminate rapid delivery of small packages as a business model, but it really constrains what is worth shipping using a drone that can carry a couple of pounds.