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The one thing I'd like to pay the post office for is to stop delivery to my house. If my mailbox were a Gmail inbox it'd be 98% spam, 2% government. And yet,

The one thing I'd like to pay the post office for is to stop delivery to my house. If my mailbox were a Gmail inbox it'd be 98% spam, 2% government. And yet, it's a Gmail inbox I can't close.

pwg 10y ago
The USPS would never offer that feature. They get directly paid [1] to deliver that spam, so providing you a 'cutoff' method directly effects their bottom line because the sender will not want to pay for items that never get delivered. But I do agree, it would be a nice feature to have a "no junk mail" switch that could be turned on. [1] I believe they do not charge a high enough price for the junk, but they do get paid to deliver it in any case.
- philsnow 10y ago
  There was https://www.google.com/contributor https://www.google.com/contributor , where you would pay them a monthly fee and they wouldn't serve google ad network ads to you. USPS could do the same thing. $1-2 / month for mail delivery service?
cr0sh 10y ago
Have you tried this?: 1. Get a box (not too large - just small enough to fit thru the door of the post offices package box - or better, use one of the USPS free shipping boxes) 2. Collect the junk mail, and put it in the box, sans any identifying information (this is important!) 3. As you collect the junk mail, keep back one of the pre-paid envelopes sent with some junk mail. 4. When the box is full, tape it up, and tape or glue the pre-paid envelope to the front. Alternatively, put the address of the postmaster general on the front. Leave the return address blank! 5. Take it to a random post office, and mail it. Use the outside boxes, and make sure not to be caught on any cameras (you may need to do a bit of looking around first) 6. Repeat as needed, paying attention to the previous step and not using the same post office each time. This is probably not completely legal - but if you do mail it to the postmaster general instead of using a pre-paid envelope, I think you can do so without needing to pay for a stamp or anything (can't recall). It might be very satisfying to do it once or twice, though. /ymmv, the above is for entertainment purposes only

The one thing I'd like to pay the post office for is to stop delivery to my house. If my mailbox were a Gmail inbox it'd be 98% spam, 2% government. And yet, it's a Gmail inbox I can't close.

pwg 10y ago

The USPS would never offer that feature. They get directly paid [1] to deliver that spam, so providing you a 'cutoff' method directly effects their bottom line because the sender will not want to pay for items that never get delivered. But I do agree, it would be a nice feature to have a "no junk mail" switch that could be turned on. [1] I believe they do not charge a high enough price for the junk, but they do get paid to deliver it in any case.

philsnow 10y ago
There was https://www.google.com/contributor https://www.google.com/contributor , where you would pay them a monthly fee and they wouldn't serve google ad network ads to you. USPS could do the same thing. $1-2 / month for mail delivery service?

cr0sh 10y ago

Have you tried this?: 1. Get a box (not too large - just small enough to fit thru the door of the post offices package box - or better, use one of the USPS free shipping boxes) 2. Collect the junk mail, and put it in the box, sans any identifying information (this is important!) 3. As you collect the junk mail, keep back one of the pre-paid envelopes sent with some junk mail. 4. When the box is full, tape it up, and tape or glue the pre-paid envelope to the front. Alternatively, put the address of the postmaster general on the front. Leave the return address blank! 5. Take it to a random post office, and mail it. Use the outside boxes, and make sure not to be caught on any cameras (you may need to do a bit of looking around first) 6. Repeat as needed, paying attention to the previous step and not using the same post office each time. This is probably not completely legal - but if you do mail it to the postmaster general instead of using a pre-paid envelope, I think you can do so without needing to pay for a stamp or anything (can't recall). It might be very satisfying to do it once or twice, though. /ymmv, the above is for entertainment purposes only