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Comment by ihsw | Hacker News Reader

Here is a graph with zeroed X-axis.

http://i.imgur.com/OAul7h2.png

At the average rate of decline (constant ~4.5% decrease in mail delivered per year), it should reach 10% of 2008's usage by 2050. This obviously does not reflect reality, and it's just a napkin calculation.

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Curious to know how much of that is spam. Since the advent of email, nearly everything that ends in my own mailbox are bills and statements, government-related correspondence, the occasional e-commerce related package and (shit tons of) spam. If the two former went full electronic, there would be very little point in having a mailbox at all -- unless you actually read your spam.

Little known fact: almost all of the spam (at least in my area) is not postal delivery. Private couriers deliver it. You can affix a "pas de pub" (no ads) sticker to your mailbox, and it stops. (It's possible the post also stops some spam delivery with this notice)

I havne't received junk mail in over a year.

Canada Post delivers junk mail to my private mailbox. Changed my bills to online (for those I could) and posted letter-stickers to my mailbox saying "No Admail Please" and now I get 0 spam mailings. Also opted out of CMA marketing, including opting out former residents addresses.

I find it amusing that email spam is such an issue for people, but physical mail and SMS spam is not. At least in South Africa, I really can't find a way to report SMS spam so I just keep on receiving it. And who the hell would I have to speak to in order to stop receiving shit in my physical mailbox

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