Can someone please summarize this bad take? I tried reading it but got lost halfway.
In my mind, this problem was solved a long time ago. We had these mysterious outlets called stores that you went to and exchanged money for product. The root problem here is that people that consumer product companies care about (ie. not poor brown people) are moving to cities, and the belt of suburban shopping centers isn't serving this population well. IMO this is a good thing, as perhaps it will enable a return to smaller scale retail in vital urban communities.
It's silly, but I don't want my neighbors thinking, "damn, they order a lot of packages" and I don't want to worry about an expensive item getting lifted. Seems to me the simplest answer is not to build a robot, but just to make smaller versions of the big box store that are essentially a small warehouse with a front office.
Big box stores are kind of screwed because they overextended on debt and used financing schemes that front-load tax benefits and create problems down the road unless you always grow.