Resisting technological inevitability: Google Wing's delivery drones and the fight for our skies

Abstract

Efforts to realise on-demand delivery drone networks present a stark example of how the technology industry seeks to dominate new markets, regardless of societal consequence. Analysing the most advanced of these efforts––Google Wing's operations in Australia since 2017––we identify the instrumental role of narratives of technological inevitability (of tech expansion, and societal adaptation) in catalysing new sky-based commerce. Yet the interest of this case study lies in a twist. Google Wing's rollout in Australia's capital, Canberra, initially proceeded as a textbook example of tech expansion. However, citizen engagement and public governance dramatically intervened and, we argue, disrupted the logic of technological inevitability. This article is the first to analyse these dynamics, many of which originated with 'Bonython Against Drones', a community action group forged from those who first lived under Google's food delivery drones. The article exposes the flawed logic of technological inevitability as the enabling force of tech expansion; characterises the governance failures that help install corporate visions for public goods; animates the potentialities of communities living with new technologies; and identifies the sky itself, as both a public commons and a vital, living habitat, as a key future locus for participatory governance.

Keywords: drones, Google, inevitability, tech determinism, smart cities, tech resistance