EDIT: Oh, and I did once see a fellow who worked as a landscaper, who hauled a lawnmower behind him on a trailer on his bike. Some of the places where he said he had clients were well away from where I met him, as in, it would have taken me (without a trailer) over an hour to bike there.
ebikes are great. I have a pretty early gen one that has a lot of flaws, but it’s still a ton of fun to ride. Most serious bikers would give the thumbs up to see someone out enjoying themselves even when I would pass them on the uphill. I would always say, be happy to trade bikes if we can trade knees as well. My knees just can do the Seattle hills, but on an assisted ebike it’s totally doable.
But isn’t that pretty much true for any hub-spoke transportation network? If you ship something by FedEx Ground it’s probably going on a truck to Memphis, even if Memphis in the wrong direction, unloaded, and then loaded onto another truck to its destination. And pretty much the same if you ship it by air, except it’s moving faster.
Granted, your independent owner-operator trucking friends probably do take their loads directly from point A to point B.