The President and CEO of eBay Inc, John Donohoe has said that eBay won’t be investing in Amazon-style drones any time soon… if at all.
Last week, Amazon head honcho Jeff Bezos released a video showing unmanned delivery drones fulfilling Amazon orders. Tamebay wrote about just about 7 days ago.
Yes, the idea of the drones is fairly ludicrous but not unimaginable. Bezos said that he expected the drones to be available within five years and make deliveries within half an hour when operational. The US aviation authorities are currently assessing whether such drones will be permissible.
Donohoe said of the drones: “We’re not really focusing on long-term fantasies. We’re working on things that will change consumers’ experiences today.”
“Bold innovation is important, but our focus on our bold innovation is around commerce. So the notion of making a storefront window a touchscreen, I’d call that a bold innovation. By having those moonshots be very focused in our area of competence, they can grow to be important businesses.”
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If ebay went into the drone delivery service as well as Amazon, it would be ‘handbags @ 10 paces . . .
Think, dog fight over London in WWII, they would be trying to shoot each other down.
What if Royal Mail go drone? ebay will be assimilated.
Should anybody really be surprised that Amazon seems to be very interested and ebay is un-interested in drones…at present. The history of big business through the years is that some like and support some ideas and others dislike and ignore the very same ideas. But it does not mean that in a few years the situation has not completely changed.
The view of the US authorities will be critical. After all hundreds, possibly thousands, even hundreds of thousands of these things flying around American Cities could be a menace. If the US Authorities ban them then you can expect that fairly quickly so with the UK and EU Authorities. Similarly if there are tight rules and regulations this too could kill the whole idea.
From my point of view I am not convinced although this sort of idea has been a staple of scifi for decades with all sorts of flying vehicles cluttering up the skies. But I must admit that I do not expect it to become reality in my lifetime(although many things that I would have said the same about 30 or 40 years ago are now the norm)..