US majority says ‘Do Not Mail’
futurity.org
futurity.org
No-No: No advertising and magazines.
No-Yes: No advertising, magazines excluded.
What's even more annoying is mail sent to a previous tennant.
Personally, I'd prefer the Royal Mail to have an expensive stamp for letters that was almost guaranteed next day delivery, and a regular stamp for letters that meant "next 3 to 5 business days". I'd like them to deliver business letters before 9am, but domestic letters could be before 4pm. These steps would save the UK mail delivery a lot of money, but have been deeply unpopular when proposed before.
Granted, that was within London, where at that time mail was delivered 12 (!) times per day.
We could jack the price of a stamp to $5, it would still be a reasonable price, and nobody but the stingiest of cheap people could possibly complain. If mailing something isn't worth the price of a hamburger to you, then you shouldn't be mailing that something.
People who are running businesses that involve sending legitimate mail cheaply will just have to start collecting larger shipping fees. It needn't affect anyone shipping anything but small things.
Kill mail, keep package delivery.
It always amazes me how the US as self-proclaimed champions of the free market and technological progress still holds on to outdated, bureaucratic nationalized monopolies like the postal service.
In many countries this market has already been privatized a long time ago, and/or scaled down to the point where relics like post offices no longer exist.
It also always amazes me that people outside the US, or people who've only looked at models of other countries, think we could have universal delivery from a profit-driven private entity (hint: the US does not have the population distribution or density of European nations).
The same problem exists for telephones but the main approach has been to set high minimum prices that non-rural carriers have to pay rural carriers for traffic flowing from the former to the latter. This enables the rural providers to make a profit but leads to unintended consequences like free conference call companies set up in rural areas which get a kick back from the local provider for the incoming traffic they engender.
One of the (very few) things the US does better than most countries is the USPS. It should be a point of pride, not some problem that needs to be left up to the 'free market' to ruin.
As part of the Christmas present for my folks I helped them add their names to the various opt-out lists. The gift of less spam keeps giving.
It's stupid that there's more sensitivity on the online spam issue than the physical spam.
The mail box is a part of my property, why aren't I entitled to choosing who can use it and who can't?
It's not legal to just dump a bunch of ads on someone's lawn every day, why is it legal to dump it in their mailbox?
Just imagine the waste. I get ads that are not even remotely relevant to me. Really weird specific stuff that you'd think that maybe 1 out of every 500 person would be interested in.
Here's an idea,
Build a customer base of people with their interests, then print a custom catalog with deals and ads and everything specifically for their interests and send it to them. So my neighbour gets sweet fishing deals and I get the nerdy deals and my wife gets the clothing ads. Conversions will be a lot higher.
As in, you return it to the sender, as a request for unsubscribing?
If that's the case I don't think it would work because the postman doesn't care which box he's dumping the ads in.
You can opt out (over here) but it's not as easy as it could be.
Keeping a recycling bin by the door relieves some guilt I feel about trashing so much stuff.
I wish they'd use more eco-friendly paper - recycled, not glossy, better inks, etc.
There have been people who've collected all their junk mail over a year. Perhaps we need to see the results for some streets to be shocked at the sheer quantity. Or maybe some international comparisons?
I note this is the Facebook model of advertising. I find it intrusive. I also worry that organisations will use their data irresponsibly. Not all uses of information are to your benefit.