Nonsense? Hardly. One thing people tend to struggle with when new technology comes around is that it has a different set of tradeoffs and advantages/disadvantages than the current dominant technology. But that doesn't make it inferior or impractical, just different.
Consider horses vs. automobiles, for example. Horses conveniently can be bred, so owning a horse can potentially give you more value than just having a means of transport or labor. Horses can also be trained for a variety of tasks, they can get better at their job over time. Horses are also excellent at traveling along uneven ground. They can travel along city streets or country roads and dirt paths or through forests and open fields or even through mountain passes. In comparison, cars, especially early cars like the model T, are inferior to horses in a great many ways. But it turns out that the few key advantages of automobiles are more than sufficient to make up for the down sides, which is why automobiles won out.
Similarly, if you imagine that drones must be a 100% drop in replacement for FedEx/UPS you'll rapidly come to the idea that the whole endeavor must be nonsense. But if instead drones only provide a complementary service then they can still be a feasible addition to delivery options. Even if drones only delivered high priced orders (say, more than $1k) to businesses with special drone landing spots it would still likely be a profitable and successful venture. Being able to have something delivered the same day in mere hours is a game changer in a lot of ways.
Imagine how much that would put Amazon even more into the existing business space of, say, home depot, as a simple example. If a home builder could order a replacement circular saw to be delivered to the work site in an hour without having to send someone out to a store that's a big deal. And there are countless examples of where the value of having some durable good delivered as soon as possible is immense, and would more than justify exorbitant drone delivery fees.
Your Home Depot reference made me think of the 24x7 propane dispensers that are in front of many Home Depots. Enter your credit card, put your old tank in the cage, take a fresh tank and you've got propane. It costs more, but adds convenience.
Amazon could easily partner with smaller-box retailers like CVS, Walgreen's, supermarkets or convenience stores to make store branches drone delivery points. If I need a Macbook Air or a circular saw now, I pay $25 and a 5 minute drive/walk to the drugstore for pickup vs. driving to the mall or waiting two days.
Amazon already has something similar for non-drone deliveries called Amazon Locker, which is actually pretty useful. But you make a good point. Drone deliveries are just one way to cut down on delivery latency. The continued existence of brick and mortar stores is a good example of the value of low latency delivery, often at a high premium. If you can spend the money that would have been spent on storefront rent, attendant wages, and distributed inventory instead on drone systems then maybe in some cases it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
Consider horses vs. automobiles, for example. Horses conveniently can be bred, so owning a horse can potentially give you more value than just having a means of transport or labor. Horses can also be trained for a variety of tasks, they can get better at their job over time. Horses are also excellent at traveling along uneven ground. They can travel along city streets or country roads and dirt paths or through forests and open fields or even through mountain passes. In comparison, cars, especially early cars like the model T, are inferior to horses in a great many ways. But it turns out that the few key advantages of automobiles are more than sufficient to make up for the down sides, which is why automobiles won out.
Similarly, if you imagine that drones must be a 100% drop in replacement for FedEx/UPS you'll rapidly come to the idea that the whole endeavor must be nonsense. But if instead drones only provide a complementary service then they can still be a feasible addition to delivery options. Even if drones only delivered high priced orders (say, more than $1k) to businesses with special drone landing spots it would still likely be a profitable and successful venture. Being able to have something delivered the same day in mere hours is a game changer in a lot of ways.
Imagine how much that would put Amazon even more into the existing business space of, say, home depot, as a simple example. If a home builder could order a replacement circular saw to be delivered to the work site in an hour without having to send someone out to a store that's a big deal. And there are countless examples of where the value of having some durable good delivered as soon as possible is immense, and would more than justify exorbitant drone delivery fees.