Geek Rants

Business Oportunity

What makes the internet so much cheaper than the telephone system is that it is packet based, also that fact that it uses routeable packets provides reliability at a cheap price. FedEx revolutionised the package delivery industry by shifting to a hub based system of package delivery. Packages go from a source to a hub (posiibly to more hubs) and then to the end-user.
WebVan tried to have packages sent point-to-point precisely the problem that FedEx replaced. Instead why not have it work as a hub system where once a day it delivers all your packages to you. This would avoid the problem where people aren't home to recieve packages, as the new system would always be home.
It could be priced as a monthly fee regardless of actually usage. This would provide an incentive to use the system as it would not cost extra for each not item added. Consumers seem to like have a predictable cost over micropayments. There seems to be no reason why it should cost more than delivery of a pizza would cost. It might even be possible to the deliveries to happen at "strange" hours based around when a phone call would be recieved to deliver now.
This system would make it more practical for web-based grocery shopping to work. Anyone who has tried to go shopping with children knows that it takes a lot of extra effort than going on ones own.