Dwarfdeaths t1_j6kuybu wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:11 AM

Reply to comment by draculamilktoast in The internet has become essentially 5 giants sites all sharing screen shots of each other and not much else. by DominosFan4Life69

Lol I've semi-seriously thought about a system of (pneumatic? electromagnetic?) tubes to take on the increasingly large role of home delivery services. Instead of trucks and cars with humans manually delivering small packages, food, etc., we could just create a standardized tube system. Anything below a certain size can be shipped via tube, and only the big stuff requires an over-the-road solution. Then the only questions are how big should the envelope be and how much would it cost to install?

draculamilktoast t1_j6m7e55 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 8:57 AM

A drone flying a package home to you doesn't require expensive infrastructure and can theoretically carry a package of any size. The real advantage to a tube system might be in speed and maybe requiring less energy per delivery but plumbers are not rich for no reason.

Dwarfdeaths t1_j6mh5th wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:15 AM

I'd think plumbing is way more complicated than a package system. Plumbing deals with a variety of pipe sizes, terminal devices, hydrodynamics, chemistry, etc. all meticulously integrated into your building. A package system just has to get a single type of object to the general vicinity of your building, and that object won't deposit limescale or grease over time. I think a better analogy is internet infrastructure.