{"id":7896,"date":"2026-09-30T14:29:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7896"},"modified":"2026-09-30T14:29:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:29:34","slug":"potato-by-air-wing-drone-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7896","title":{"rendered":"Potato by air | The Verge"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Wing Hummingbird 7000W-B delivery drone weighs less than 15 pounds. It has 16 propellers \u2014 four for horizontal movement and 12 for vertical \u2014 a top speed of 60 miles per hour, a carrying capacity of up to 2.7 pounds, and a delivery radius of about six miles. It is authorized by the FAA for beyond-line-of-sight piloting. As a feat of engineering, it is impressive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So far I\u2019ve mostly used it to send people potatoes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It all started a few Sunday mornings ago when my neighbor Will added me and a half dozen other local dads to a group chat. I only recognized a few of the numbers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAnyone looking for dumb stuff to entertain the kids?\u201d he wrote, under a video of a drone lowering a blue doggie bag into his backyard. He\u2019d discovered that we were now in the delivery range for drone service Wing<\/a>\u2019s partnership with Walmart, and could get household items dropped onto our lawns in 25 minutes. \u201cHopefully liquor store will get on board soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ever since I saw the video of an Amazon drone dropping a package in someone\u2019s pool<\/a>, I\u2019ve needed to know one thing: Do you have to order drone delivery to your own<\/em> yard? I raised the question in the chat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Group<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Turns out: no and yes.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Nathan Edwards \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Will, a few minutes later: \u201cNathan I just ordered you a potato to see if I can send to other people. 8 minutes out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two minutes after that, a neighbor named Rick: \u201cWill just want you to know you\u2019re going to get your potato first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rick and Will had each scanned the list of deliverable items \u2014 over two thousand of them \u2014 and independently arrived at the same conclusion. \u201cThere is currently an air strike squadron of potatoes headed to our neighborhood,\u201d Rick wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Fixed-wing<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s a bird! It\u2019s a plane! It\u2019s a cropped still from a video!<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Nathan Edwards \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At 12:14PM, a drone dropped a doggie bag in my yard. It contained a single russet potato and a bottle of water. Three minutes later, another arrived in Will\u2019s yard, also<\/em> containing a single potato and a bottle of water. (The water bottle seems to have been added as ballast; every Wing order I\u2019ve placed came with one.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Someone posted \u201cThe drones are everywhere.\u201d Those of us who hadn\u2019t met introduced ourselves. An apparently more practical dad named Jason ordered himself a pair of gloves. Dev, who lives in the next development over, was just out of drone range and could only watch in envy. Eventually, a storm rolled in and the potato drones tapered off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

My child voluntarily peeled and cooked a potato. This is huge. <\/em><\/figcaption>Photo: Nathan Edwards \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Slice consistency could use some work but A for effort.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo: Nathan Edwards \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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My sixth-grader turned our sky potato into oven fries; Will baked his.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The wild thing \u2014 aside from the fact that you can just order a drone delivery to someone else\u2019s yard <\/em>\u2014 is that each potato delivery cost 82 cents. Total. Each order came from the Walmart Supercenter a few miles away. Wing is absolutely losing money on this. There\u2019s no minimum order, there\u2019s no delivery fee, and the prices are the same as in-store. Wing\u2019s not even collecting sales tax. Welcome back, millennial lifestyle subsidy<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At these prices, if you\u2019re not<\/em> using drones to send potatoes to your neighbors you\u2019re leaving money on the table. That evening, I remembered that my friend Bill had been going through a rough time lately.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Okay, technically, Wing\u2019s terms of service state<\/a> \u201cYou will not use the Service to engage in any unlawful behavior, or to cause harassment, nuisance, annoyance or inconvenience to Wing, its users or any other person.\u201d And I can definitely see ways you could abuse the system to do that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While I lacked actual<\/em> permission to land a drone potato in Bill\u2019s yard, based on our relationship, I was confident I had spiritual permission. (This was confirmed a couple of days later when he asked me to drone deliver some candy for his kids. I sent the candy, and then another potato, and then the link to the Wing app.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So what\u2019s stopping someone from using this to harass people, beyond your own moral compass and the fact that they ask you not to? When I asked what safeguards the company had in place to prevent unauthorized deliveries, Wing spokesperson Jessie Poole-Strang wrote:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wing has safely completed over 1 million residential drone deliveries, averaging thousands per day. Customers must be physically present for their first order, and every order requires a verified account and confirmation of a clear delivery zone. Just like traditional delivery or mailing a package, customers can choose to send an order to a friend or family member\u2019s address that lives in eligible service areas. In the rare event a resident ever has a concern about a delivery to their property, our support team can help (support@wing.com).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Now, is drone delivery wasteful? If you\u2019re only buying a single lightweight item \u2014 like a stick of deodorant, a bottle of sunscreen, or a potato \u2014 it seems more environmentally friendly than driving to the store. And as long as it\u2019s subsidized, it\u2019s way cheaper than DoorDash or whatever people use. I could see situations where it would be genuinely useful, especially if you can\u2019t leave the house but you desperately need a bottle of ibuprofen and a Gatorade (for example). And of course it would be preposterous to DoorDash someone a single raw potato.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\u201cyou<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Of course, once you order more than a pound or so of stuff, that math goes off the rails. One afternoon, my wife ordered a box of frozen horchata mochi and a pint of gelato \u2014 among the few frozen desserts on the list. They arrived in two separate drones, three minutes apart, and each came with a small bottle of water. They held up surprisingly well during their 7-minute trips in the full Texas sun, considering the total lack of insulation. But it did feel silly to get two drones for two items.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s how they get you, of course. They hook you with convenience while hiding the true cost of the service. Drone delivery further squeezes gig workers in an already shrinking labor market, and it\u2019s one more excuse for big companies to suppress wages. You don\u2019t have to pay a drone, and you don\u2019t have to tip it, either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s been just over three weeks since we found out we had access to subsidized drone delivery. Aside from the two desserts and a couple of bags of gummy Nerds clusters, I\u2019ve only<\/em> used it to send potatoes to the dads. I sent three last week, plus one to myself to throw them off the scent. I\u2019ve probably blown my cover now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The other day someone \u2014 not me \u2014 escalated and sent Rick a broccoli potato soup. I\u2019m pretty sure it was Will.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What have I learned from all of this? Well, I now know a few more people in my neighborhood. I\u2019ve learned that drone delivery is way more useful to me than agentic AI has ever been. And that given the opportunity to airdrop subsidized potatoes to my friends, I\u2019ll take it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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