Show HN: Mel – The missing unsubscribe button for physical mail | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Mel – The missing unsubscribe button for physical mail

talktomel.com

58 pointsnolastan45 comments

Since 2017, I've been on a mission to stop the deluge of paper mail that ends up in my trash. It's been a slow, manual process, but I've succeeded! I created Mel to help others rid themselves of physical junk mail.

Simply text a photo of junk mail and Mel contacts the sender to have you removed from their list – no registration or app required.

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I really like the concept of "text this number to perform action". There was a post a few months back about a postcard creation service where you just text a photo.

Do you remember the name of the post card service? Sounds neat!

don't remember and can't seem to find it from searching :(

I recall this being similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371168

I'm a big fan of https://www.thesimplepostcard.com/

Thanks! I created the initial MVP of Mel right after we shut down Remedy back in 2017, so the SMS-based UI was top-of-mind.

A great post-mortem on Remedy here: https://www.fastcompany.com/40483774/remedy-wanted-to-cut-pe...

How do you "text a photo"? Does this imply iMessage or MMS?

I'm based in Europe and nobody uses SMS or iMessage here, so genuine question.

In the Messages app, next to the text field, there is a camera icon.

:D well, _that_ implies iMessage and/or MMS I guess.

As I said, nobody in central Europe uses that afaik.

I have a TCL flip phone (alongside an iPhone 8): can text a flip phone photo by going to photo gallery, selecting a photo, going to “options” and then “share”. Message then becomes an option and an MMS text is possible.

This isn’t one size fits all but would start by going to the photo itself and then generate a text

How do you send a message to someone's phone number, then? Or do you somehow not use phone numbers anymore?

We mostly use Whatsapp or Signal, which both use phone numbers for account identification/verification.

I am surprised again and again how different the US and Europa are in this respect, and even more about how little people are aware of that. Nobody uses iMessage outside of the US, and the UI of Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram are arguably much better.

It's nearly universal parlance in the USA to call MMS and SMS 'texts'. They are shown and treated as the same thing by the phone OS. I wouldn't expect the average layperson to even know there's a difference.

I'm honestly surprised that's not the case everywhere. Do you distinguish SMS and MMS in casual conversation?

Afaik nobody uses MMS in central Europe. Depending on the carrier it is not even supported anymore, and has been very expensive before that. Virtually everyone switched to Whatsapp ten years ago.

Weird. I don't know anyone who uses WhatsApp or similar in the US. MMS is well supported and usually billed the same as SMS these days (AFAIK).

I just moved to the USA from Europe and have found sms/mms to be annoying. I'm consistently missing texts especially mms. Maybe my settings are slightly off or the payload is exceeding MMS size limits but it's way less reliable than Whatsapp. Everyone seems to use iPhones so they don't hit this issue until they text an android user like me.

For the DIY route see https://www.catalogchoice.org/, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

I tried PaperKarma and had decent results. You offer up privacy and lack of app as a differentiator— should I be concerned having used PaperKarma? Are they charging me AND selling data?

I also like the idea of the research assistant. It is a mess trying to figure out how to reduce waste that accumulates without my real consent, from mail, food packaging, single use packaging/plastic tossed into orders despite me saying I don’t want it, hard to recycle e-waste, confusing/changing recycling rules for plastic and even glass some places. However, I also think that this can only be meaningfully improved with policy, not an opt-in, private service. Better than nothing, of course.

Aside from that, I actually have to thank you, because I stopped using it, forgot the name of the company, and forgot what was charging me $4 every month under the label “JET*.”

Thanks to privacy laws, we do not get much personal spam in the mail in France (one that is addressed to you). We get quite a lot of anonymous one, though.

There are stickers your can use on your mailbox that theoretically protect your from spam but it works maybe in 10% of the cases.

Out of curiosity, I reached a few times to the "senders" telling them that they put spam in my mailbox despite the sticker. All of them were completely taken aback and had no idea about how to react.

I mentioned privacy and whatnot and they all promised to get back to me, never got back and probably cross fingers to have the case closed :)

In the US you can opt out of the majority of junk mail from creditors and insurance here - https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-insuran...

Yes, for those looking to do it themselves, there's a how-to guide on the blog: https://blog.talktomel.com/blog/7-ways-to-unsubscribe-from-p...

I wish this actually worked

It does. I did it years ago and have not received a single unsolicited credit offer from a company I don't already have a relationship with.

It absolutely does work.

We should all have a personal postal code that would link to our current address.

When we change our address we would link the postal code to the new directory. By having this the companies would not know where we live and we would have a place to select the mail we want.

That would be nice. However, the postal service is required to deliver your mail, and they make money by doing so. They have no interest in reducing mail and in fact have been advertising their “Every Door Direct Mail” service which is nearly impossible to opt out of. Look for “EDDM” label on mail and you’ll see what I mean.

> Protect your privacy

> Just link your name, home address, and phone number for this random company

Yeah, no thanks.

Edited to clarify for those who may be unfamiliar with the concept of PII.

Do you really consider your address private information?

There's a big difference between having one's name and address appear on a public land registry database, vs just handing it to an SF tech startup. At some point that data will monetized. Remember unroll.me? [0]

If this organization registers as a nonprofit, that's one thing. Outside of that, I wouldn't trust such services any further than I could throw a pitch deck claiming to make the world a better place, with your PII.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/17/21027159/unroll-me-email...

While I don't intend to register as a non-profit (there's CatalogChoice already), I could see registering as a Benefit Corporation / B Corp. Would that hold any weight, or would you still just view that as "an SF tech startup"?

There is no pitch deck for Mel as I don't intend to raise VC funding – precisely because I don't want to be pressured into doing something that goes against my values like selling user data.

Totally understand the privacy concern. If it helps, I'm a person, not a company—and I put my photo and personal links right on the homepage so folks can decide if they would like to trust me with this sensitive information.

It's not 2004 anymore, people may need a bit more than your photo and links in exchange for what you're asking.

I'm in the process of reaching out to existing customers, with an aim of getting some reviews on TrustPilot. Do you have any other ideas?

I accept that there's a certain percent of folks who will not trust me with their address, so I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or pressure anyone into signing up if that's the case.

Back when I worked at SaveUp, and we gave real cash prizes to people every day, we always had people claiming we were a scam. We even posted videos to YouTube of our selection and giveaway process, and posted new testimonials to our site every single day, but certain folks simply couldn't be convinced.

I would say register as a nonprofit, but that may not be feasible if you're planning to run this as a business.

People have soured on tech companies ostensibly doing something for the public good; it never works out as it should, because behind companies are investors, and at some point, they'll want returns.

The classic example is unroll.me -- auto-unsubscribe with no strings attached*! Asterisk: many strings attached.

There's just no guarantee that introducing a middleman won't bite me in the ass later.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/17/21027159/unroll-me-email...

Well, the spammers sending you junk mail already have all this? Not much to lose here :)

Except for a widening of the attack surface... this goes further than "nothing to hide".

Spammer mail takes the shotgun approach, it isn't targeted at all except very roughly by zip code (restaurant coupons work this way). Everybody in my building gets the same junk mail.

Unrelated to the project, I'm excited for AI-generated art to get better or decline in popularity.

The art on the homepage and its Stripe checkout pages give me the heebie-jeebies for some reason.

> for some reason

That reason has two names: Dribbble and Behance. That's where all this 'AI' website art and assets come from.

The image with the bird and the mailbox I generated directly from DALL•E. The asset on the Stripe checkout page for the Assistant plan I generated using Midjourney. All of these assets are placeholders while my partner is working on drawing a custom mascot to represent Mel.

I didn't intend to criticize the art itself, just mentioned why AI website art has that recognizable look, plus that usual soft-focus glow shadow. I think it looks fine for a company website.

What's the pitch vs PaperKarma?

Does this work in the UK?

I haven't done enough research yet on UK. I will circle back to this comment once I do.

I did have a user sign up from Canada, but it's so much simpler there that it probably doesn't make sense for Canadians to pay for Mel:

  1. Fill out the CMA Do Not Mail form: https://cmadnm.cawebhosting.ca/submit.asp

  2. Put a note on your mailbox that you don't want to receive Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail.

For the UK: https://www.mpsonline.org.uk/

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