A few weeks ago someone bought some camera equipment from me and said I could use his Fedex number. On my phone, I look up a store on their map, went to it because the app seemed to indicate it was a real operation, in Walgreens, but there were no FedEx people, only locker boxes. Fedex tech failure #1. So I find a real store but don’t want to drive into the middle of the city if there is no place to park. I called, The FedEx person on the phone doesn’t know the parking situation. All I need is a 5-minute zone. They don’t know. FedEx failure #2. (I ship USPS, easy-peasy). If I could have shipped through Amazon I would have. The only reason I couldn’t is that Amazon hasn’t decided to offer the service yet, though they can clearly do it.

I believe only politics is making Amazon wary of going too far into the shipping business.

The core asset of any shipping company is its logistics/computer system. Any one can buy a truck or plane. Uber, Lyft, Walmart, Google Maps, and many retailers have essentially the same tech that Fedex/UPS/USPS has. That is a recent development. Amazon may not push FedEx into the hands of Walmart of Shopify. Instead, packages become like IP packets on the Internet. Various companies specialize in certain routes and each package’s transit fee is split up among the carriers. I believe this is already going on between the USPS and Amazon, etc. In such a world, as you so chillingly point out, there are plenty of people with transport and labor. FedEx is old. There is plenty of empty storefronts to house packages in transit. The jackals are circling.

If Amazon doesn’t kill Fedex, some kids with laptops will create a shipping Uber that will.