Hacker News Reader

Comment by perry5000 | Hacker News Reader

It would also kill several small businesses that rely on junk mail as their only affordable advertising medium (e.g. think Pennysavers).

View on HN

If their only means of survival is to ship metric tons of trash to people, let them die.

I think we'll live.

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.

That sounds like a good idea, but I'm afraid that you'd be left with credit card and insurance companies who could afford those high rates. Your local small mom-and-pop shops would be left out.

Sounds like an improvement.

Wouldn't that affect, for instance, eBay sellers who need to ship their goods? You'd need to bump parcel mail up in cost in order to stop people using that instead. I've got small items from fricking China for less than $5 total including shipping!

Just set a 5 dollar rate for standard envelopes and slide everything else that was previously less that 5 dollars up a bit. Things that were previously 10 dollars or more would stay the same.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com