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Comment by dec0dedab0de | Hacker News Reader

a bit off topic, but I think Bed Bath and Beyond should make their slogan "Don't bother coming in here if you forgot to carry around that trash we sent you"

I wish the post office would allow me to block anything that said "or current resident"

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Problem is, while you call it "spam", the post office calls those mailers "job security". Some weeks if I didn't get spam I wouldn't get any mail at all and the USPS would be in worse financial shape than it already is.

Reasons for treating public services as public goods and subsidising them without creating negative externalities.

USPS takes zero tax dollars and zero funding from the federal government.

You're may be right, but I know for a fact that the federal government just gives them a huge line a credit to borrow from.

You know that for a fact? I've never heard that. I'm not disputing it since I've never heard this argument before, but it does fly in the face of the fact that the federal government also demands absolutely massive amounts of money from them: https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume

Thank you for that absolutely enlightening link.

People like to assume all parts of our gov are absolutely worthless. USPS does a good job.

That's the present situation, largely. It's not always been the case, however, and the USPS was originally and very deliberately structured as a subsidised service, and a cabinet-level office.

It's actually the federal government who put the USPS in that situation by demanding they fund the retirement of employees who weren't even born at the time. Without that ridiculous requirement, the USPS would be perfectly fine, financially.

Straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume

Well, the Federal government as utilised by both competing and ideological interests, yes.

That's actually not what I was referring to, see follow-up comment to my parent above.

My (admittedly brief) comment concerned the original formation of the U.S. Post Office and its long-time role in subsidised communications. Robert McChesney is among those who've addressed this:

In the first generations of the republic, newspapers accounted for between 70 percent and 95 percent of post-office traffic, and newspapers depended upon the post office for the distribution of much of their circulation. A key question facing Congress was what to charge newspapers to be mailed. No one at the time was arguing that newspapers should pay full freight, that the market should rule; the range of debate was between those who argued for a large public subsidy and those who argued that all postage for newspapers should be free, to encourage the production and distribution of a wide range of ideas. The former position won, and it contributed to a massive flowering of print media in the United States throughout the early 19th century. What is most striking about this period, as Paul Starr argues in his new book, The Creation of the Media, is that there wasn't rhetoric about free markets in the media, nor about the sacrosanct rights of commercial interests. That came later.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McChesney/Waging_Media_Bat...

In his books, McChesney puts strong weight on the role of the post office in the development of early journalism and media, largely in the form of newspapers and magazines.

Related: the USPS subsidised the operation of both railroads and air travel through postal services on both. Trains, through the 1960s, had "post office cars", which not only carried postal mail, but which were mobile sorting offices in which mail was organised, in transit, for its final destination. The development of postal codes, "Zone Instant Postal Codes", better known as "ZIP Codes", in the 1960s, helped phase those out.

Airmail played a role in the establishment of early regularly scheduled air flights.

And if you've ever wondered what the "RMS" in "RMS Titanic" stood for, it's "Royal Mail Ship".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_post_office

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_Code

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmail

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Mail_Ship

The USPS’ “problems” are Congressionally-inflicted. In 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act required the Post Office to have a 75 year reserve for retirement and medical benefits. Yes, that means they have to cover benefits for postal workers yet to be born.

The USPS is the only agency in the Government that has such a burdensome requirement. Even the Armed Forces, which arguably has a much higher liability for medical coverage and has to pay retirement benefits to soldier’s families, is only required to have a 20 year reserve.

That's got me thinking... I wonder if you could use that as the name (current resident) in the USPS forwarding services found online? You would only need a throwaway email address to create an account and set it up. This might merit a test.

Why would you want to do that?

The poster is saying to route that mail elsewhere.

For me, I'd route it to my old address.

I dislike the current resident there anyway.

Exploiting the online tools to re-route unwanted spam would only work for mail that has paid postage and been processed through the system. If you're using Informed Delivery you'll see that most of the "current resident" spam doesn't appear in your digest because it hasn't actually been mailed (it's placed in your box by the postal carrier directly). Would a named re-route hack work on the processed spam? I say 60/40 in favor of yes, until they catch on. Lots of magazines and catalogues tack on "or current resident" after the name and if the USPS routing regex is not too strict you'll either be able send all your Sears catalogues to Abu Dhabi or you'll discover an un-handled edge case and break your mail. Either way, sounds fun.

Wow, that's incredibly informative. Thank you.

I don't understand the part where you mention the carrier directly placing mail without it being processed.

Why does that happen? How does that work? The carrier gives that to all mailboxes?

USPS sells their own direct mail service [0]. The carrier has a stack of fliers or cards or whatever it is you ordered and they just put one in each box. Pretty sure you can target down certain neighborhoods. I think they also offer printing for complete full service.

[0] https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

Forward them away from your address, thus removing the need to throw them away yourself.

Are those services free in the US? In Canada forwarding costs quite a bit.

Yes. Free via USPS.

USPS has put almost all of their available services online for free and made them very easy to use (and they have also placed self-service smart kiosks in most post offices which are just great too).

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