Flying Car and Snail Mail

[Howard]

I just got a regular snail mail ad for Askafly, a flying car, or as they
put it "WORLD担 FIRST CONSUMER DRIVE & FLY eVTOL"

The mailer plays up a supposed angle of 60 minutes from the Hamptons to
Manhattan, which is most definitely not me, but whatever.

What I thought was interesting was they were resorting to junk mail to
advertise, but I suspect they probably used a big marketing budget as a
bullet point in their pitch to investors, there is only so far they can
go with online ads, and they've probably tapped out their outreach to
credulous outlets like this:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/flying-car-buyers-can-now-preorder-
an-2026-aska-for-5000/

I think there's a certain irony that tech bros killed off so much of
traditional media and they now no longer get much reach when they want
to find the people who used to subscribe to GQ or Time or whatever. They
probably know that Facebook ads are junk, and they're forced to rely on
mailers in an era when libertarians are turning even that into a
crapshoot as far as when it will hit.

[Boron Elgar]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 16:35:05 +0000 (UTC), Howard <how...@yaooho.com>
wrote:

Snail mail can be highly targeted, too. No targeting is foolproof, but
even the USPS pushes programs to advertisers. How you got on the list
is anyone's algorithm guess, but it is so much more interesting than
the usual lawn service mailings.

That Manhattan to the Hamptons route has always been golden. so if
anyone is going out there with pie-in-the-sky Kickstarter sorts of
offerings looking for cash, this is pocket change for the Hamptons
crowd.

[Howard]

Boron Elgar <boron...@hotmail.com> wrote

> Snail mail can be highly targeted, too. No targeting is foolproof, but
> even the USPS pushes programs to advertisers. How you got on the list
> is anyone's algorithm guess, but it is so much more interesting than
> the usual lawn service mailings.

I'll try to remember to ask neighbors if the opportunity arises whether
they got it too, which would suggest it's a geographically targeted
promo, or if it's something more complicated like an alumni-geo-credit
rating deal. Not that I fall into a base that would fall for this kind
of thing, but it's always possible the marketing goal was buzz rather
than sales.

> That Manhattan to the Hamptons route has always been golden. so if
> anyone is going out there with pie-in-the-sky Kickstarter sorts of
> offerings looking for cash, this is pocket change for the Hamptons
> crowd.

I wonder if it's a Producers-style scheme that would fail if they ever
got to the delivery stage. You can't look at the photos of Hamptons
traffic and think this would ever be serious. You're not making any
major dent in that traffic, and getting to and from a runway on both
ends is still a huge pain. Probably worse if they ever actually
launched. The truly rich are taking helicopters straight from their
estates, Billy Joel style, and something like this makes no sense for
them.

And that's setting aside all of the other issues of flying these things.
The party ferry boats make so much more sense for the rich but not
super-rich types. Or party buses in places like Silicon Valley.

[Boron Elgar]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2021 17:13:02 +0000 (UTC), Howard <how...@yaooho.com>
wrote:

Don't know if this is behind a paywall or not, but lotta money going
into air taxi investing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-11/evtol-the-skies-will-be-crowded-with-flying-taxis-by-virgin-american-airlines?srnd=premium&sref=Wf4aR7RY

[Howard]

Boron Elgar <boron...@hotmail.com> wrote

> Don't know if this is behind a paywall or not, but lotta money going
> into air taxi investing.
>
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-11/evtol-the-skies-
will-be-crowded-with-flying-taxis-by-virgin-american-airlines

I loved that credulous subhed "great news for commuters" -- if the
reporter (or editor) had done just a cursory bit of research that would
have been a much hotter piece that moved it from being just about the
herd mentality of investors and into stupid speculation territory.

I'm agnostic whether some kind of VTOL taxi will ever launch -- throw
enough money at something and you might get one or two off the ground.

But getting an entire system to work, and getting the kind of throughput
you need to make it worthwhile is an entirely different thing.

It's the same issues that will hit Musk's stupid Las Vegas tunnel. The
throughput is lousy and there is just no way to scale them up to make
them worth the investment. Digging the tunnel was never the hard part,
putting a few Teslas in them isn't a big deal either. It's scaling up to
a point where it has an impact anywhere close to the expenditure where
it falls apart.

[Questor]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 16:35:05 +0000 (UTC), Howard <how...@yaooho.com> wrote:
>I just got a regular snail mail ad for Askafly, a flying car, or as they
>put it "WORLD担 FIRST CONSUMER DRIVE & FLY eVTOL"
>
>The mailer plays up a supposed angle of 60 minutes from the Hamptons to
>Manhattan, which is most definitely not me, but whatever.
>
>What I thought was interesting was they were resorting to junk mail to
>advertise, but I suspect they probably used a big marketing budget as a
>bullet point in their pitch to investors, there is only so far they can
>go with online ads, and they've probably tapped out their outreach to
>credulous outlets like this:
>
>https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/flying-car-buyers-can-now-preorder-
>an-2026-aska-for-5000/

There's the old saw that we know that half of all advertising dollars are wasted
-- we just don't know which half.

Echoing Boron's point, direct mail advertising can be tailored as broad or
narrow as desired. There's a lot of information sloshing around out there:
property records, vechicle registrations, magazine subscriptions, credit card
purchases, usw. Perhaps you should be flattered that you are considered
sufficiently up-scale to be potentially interested in a flying car.

>I think there's a certain irony that tech bros killed off so much of
>traditional media and they now no longer get much reach when they want
>to find the people who used to subscribe to GQ or Time or whatever. They
>probably know that Facebook ads are junk, and they're forced to rely on
>mailers in an era when libertarians are turning even that into a
>crapshoot as far as when it will hit.

I see many of what appear to be "web site only" businesses advertising on cable
televsion channels. Some sites, like nuts.com, are selling a physical product.
(In this case, nut mixes and associated snack items.) Another, whose
name I've forgotten, is apparently a real estate broker specializing in retail
and small commercial spaces. Then there's Alltrails.com, which I've yet to
visit, and apparently has something to do with hiking and outdoor activities.
It doesn't seem to offer either goods or services, so I'm not sure what their
business model is. I know this has been happening for at least a couple of
years, but I've been noticing it more and more. Many are sites I've never heard
of, and with names that seem to bear no connection to the product or service
offered.

--
Out of nine lives, I've spent seven. Now how in the world can you
get to heaven?

[Questor]

On Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:53:21 +0000 (UTC), Howard <how...@yaooho.com> wrote:
>Boron Elgar <boron...@hotmail.com> wrote
>> Don't know if this is behind a paywall or not, but lotta money going
>> into air taxi investing.
>>
>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-11/evtol-the-skies-
>will-be-crowded-with-flying-taxis-by-virgin-american-airlines
>
>I loved that credulous subhed "great news for commuters" -- if the
>reporter (or editor) had done just a cursory bit of research that would
>have been a much hotter piece that moved it from being just about the
>herd mentality of investors and into stupid speculation territory.
>
>I'm agnostic whether some kind of VTOL taxi will ever launch -- throw
>enough money at something and you might get one or two off the ground.

I think there are places where air taxis -- small helicopters -- are already in
regular use. Sao Paulo, Brazil comes to mind. Affordable only for the
well-to-do, of course, but there are enough of them and the ground traffic
is sufficiently bad to warrant the expense, thus sustaining a small number
of operators. There is also some supporting infrastructure, in the form of
helipads on top of many of the tall buildings in the city.

Helicopters are frightfully expensive to operate and maintain, so I'm guessing
that one thrust of the VTOL push is to reduce those costs, resulting in a more
affordable service. That would also open the door to more private ownership.
In either case you get more air traffic, and that's where the big problems lie.

An air taxi service is likely to be only economically viable in big cities,
where the hazards of big buildings and concentrated air traffic already exist.
Adding more local flights to that traffic will only increase the risks. There
are also limits, in that you need landing sites. That's less of a problem in
the suburbs, but neighbors are likely to be unhappy about frequent taxi fly-bys
of their properties.

--
Siam's going to be the witness to the ultimate test in cerebal fitness

[Questor]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 16:35:05 +0000 (UTC), Howard <how...@yaooho.com> wrote:
>I just got a regular snail mail ad for Askafly, a flying car, or as they
>put it "WORLD担 FIRST CONSUMER DRIVE & FLY eVTOL"
>
>The mailer plays up a supposed angle of 60 minutes from the Hamptons to
>Manhattan, which is most definitely not me, but whatever.
>

>https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/flying-car-buyers-can-now-preorder-
>an-2026-aska-for-5000/

Another addition to the "there will never be flying cars" file that neatly lays
out some of the arguments against their widespread adoption:

https://hackaday.com/2021/08/09/a-new-flying-car-illustrates-the-same-old-problems/

A New Flying Car Illustrates The Same Old Problems

excerpt:

"The AirCar does a lot of the obvious things right. The car body itself is
shaped to generate lift, and everything that can be made lightweight is. The
convertible wings and tail are really fun to watch as they fold in for driving
mode.

"So What's The Problem?

"A car with folding wings that can drive around town as well as take to the
skies might seem like it's solved the problem of the flying car once and for
all. Unfortunately, this doesn't take into account all the practical issues
around the entire concept. There's a reason major automakers have never put
serious efforts into such technology, after all.

"Building a car that can fly, fundamentally, is certainly doable, as the AirCar
demonstrates. However, as the design shows, no new fancy technology was required
to solve this problem. Thus, there must be some other reason we haven't seen
flying cars in great numbers already, and indeed there is.

"While the AirCar may be called a "flying car", more accurately, it is a plane
that you can drive on the road. It still requires a pilot licence to fly, and it
still requires the use of airports to take off and land. While air journeys may
sometimes be faster on paper than the same journey by car, these analyses often
completely ignore the significant administrative and logistical hurdles. Filing
flight plans, running pre-flight checks, dealing with air traffic and securing a
landing slot at a busy runway all take time which makes such journeys often
slower than a car when everything is taken into account.

"The simple matter remains that flying is hard. Keeping a car in between the
dotted lines on the road is a task that many are able to handle, even if the
road trauma statistics are higher than we might otherwise like. Controlling a
plane, which can literally fall out of the sky if the pilot gets things wrong,
is much harder, and carries much greater consequences. Multi-car crashes on the
road are often survivable; air-to-air collisions are almost always fatal.
Similarly, a poorly maintained car might leave its owner stranded and late for
work. A poorly-maintained plane often leads to much more dire consequences.

"In short, this isn't the flying car for you, unless you're already a light
airplane pilot. This is much more a pilot's car than it is a automobile driver's
airplane. But it's also a snapshot of one man's 30-year dream to make it a
reality. And if you're waiting to get your hands on one, they are taking orders,
but if you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can't afford it."

--
How you gonna feel when you see your lady strolling?
On the deck of a starship with her head hooked into Andromeda