Apartments and multi-story buildings have zero viable drone drop-off points

Drone delivery requires an open, unobstructed landing or lowering zone -- typically a front yard, driveway, or open field. But 36% of Americans live in apartments or multi-unit buildings where no such zone exists. Drones cannot enter building lobbies, navigate hallways, use elevators, ring doorbells, or access balconies safely. Current solutions involve lowering packages on a cable or parachuting them down, both of which require a clear area of at least 10-15 feet in diameter, which most urban apartment buildings do not have. This is devastating because the densest urban areas, where delivery demand is highest and last-mile costs are most painful, are precisely the areas where drone delivery cannot work. A drone delivery company operating in a city like New York, San Francisco, or Chicago can serve perhaps 15-20% of addresses (single-family homes with yards), missing the majority of potential customers entirely. The structural reason is that buildings were designed for human access, not aerial access. Retrofitting buildings with drone landing pads on rooftops would require structural engineering approval, building code changes, HOA or landlord cooperation, and massive capital expenditure -- none of which has a clear business model to fund it.