I'm currently a customer of https://www.usglobalmail.com , just one of many services like this. They scan mail, can throw it away for you, and can repack / reship packages.
My apartment, on a weekly basis, gets mail to roughly 3-5 previous inhabitants. As in, exact same address, etc.
Sometimes even bills from insurance companies or other important mail.
I think when you move you're supposed to notify USPS to forward mail to your new address (probably also inform important mailers of the move as well) but from what I've seen they don't propagate the address changes very well.
I mean, sure, those previous inhabitants may not have notified USPS at all, but I find that hard to believe.
Also a lot of junk mail will be addressed to the name "or current resident"
> sure, those previous inhabitants may not have notified USPS at all, but I find that hard to believe
I certainly wouldn't. Why would I notify the USPS that I moved? I would notify my contacts (or much more likely, they'd ask me for my address in the event they wanted to send me something). A delivery service is for delivering things to addresses, not to people.
A delivery service is for delivering things to people; addresses are just a tool for locating the perosn you are trying to get the thing delivered to.
If I have something mailed to me at my office, are you claiming the post office hasn't made a mistake when they deliver it to my home?
So, like, General Delivery?
> If I have something mailed to me at my office, are you claiming the post office hasn't made a mistake when they deliver it to my home?
There's a question of principal/agent there, so maybe, maybe not.
OTOH, I'll maintain that the post office is not making a mistake when it keeps delivering my mail from my employer to me at my actual address, even though they keep sending it to an address which resembles mine only in that the street name and zip code are the same, and two of the four numbers in the street address they use also appear (in different positions) in my actual address.
Which I suppose I should go talk to HR about again.
There is value in updating your address. Ideally, you won't need a year to get things sorted, but a couple of months is certainly valuable.
You're trying to invoke the fear that the only method of contacting your friend is to write to the last address you knew for them. That was true once; it has no particular relationship to the modern day.
Even when it was true, though, postal services were a system for delivering mail to places, not to people. If your friend moved and you didn't know that, it was difficult to contact them.