DoorDash got FAA certification to launch drones. The company that can't get a warm burger to your house in under forty minutes now wants to do it with unmanned aircraft. This will go great.
The push into autonomous delivery reduces reliance on human couriers. That's the corporate way of saying we're firing the guys who already made seven dollars after gas to bring you chicken wings. But don't worry. A drone will drop your food from thirty feet up instead. Innovation.
The FAA signed off on this. The same agency that grounds entire fleets over a software glitch looked at DoorDash's business model and said yeah, put that in the sky. They reviewed the company's track record of wrong addresses, missing items, and drivers eating fries in your driveway, then handed them permission to operate flying machines over residential neighborhoods. Confidence inspiring.
Retail traders will love this headline. They'll see autonomous delivery and think Uber's finished, buy puts, then watch DoorDash stock do nothing for six months while the drones sit in a warehouse waiting for regulatory approval in forty-nine other states. One guy will post a thread about how this is bullish for Joby Aviation because drones equal future or some shit. He'll lose money on that too.
The drones will crash. Not sometimes. Often. They'll land in pools, on roofs, in traffic. One will definitely hit a dog. DoorDash will call it a learning opportunity and keep charging you nine dollars in fees. The future of food delivery is a robot falling out of the sky with your burrito, and you'll still tip fifteen percent because the app makes you feel guilty.
Human couriers had one job: bring food from point A to point B. DoorDash decided that was too reliable and added propellers.
Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash
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