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Is it not the other way around? I would think that the USPS subsidizes paper spam. I find it very hard to believe that paper spamming would be even remotely eco

by baddox 8y ago

Is it not the other way around? I would think that the USPS subsidizes paper spam. I find it very hard to believe that paper spamming would be even remotely economically viable at market cost.

sjwright 8y ago
Why would USPS subsidize spam? What’s the upside to them? They have literally no incentive I can think of to do that.
- T-hawk 8y ago
  They subsidize it by charging a rate per piece that is less than a regular stamped mailing, but at a price level that still turns a profit. It's market segmentation, full price service for those willing to pay it, and a cheaper option for business without enough margins to justify that.
- baddox 8y ago
  Let me clarify my argument. Ostensibly, the goal of the USPS is to connect all of America with flat-rate first-class mail. The USPS charges as much to send a letter across the country as it does to send it to your apartment neighbor. That means that people in cities (or really, people in routes with high density first-class mail usage) subsidize people in lower-density areas. Let’s assume that we agree that this goal is reasonable, and thus that this subsidy of low-density customers by high-density customers is reasonable. This means that mass-mailers are being subsidized by the USPS’ implementation of this goal of nationwide first-class mail, because presumably they are paying less than the actual cost of mailing their advertisements. I suppose we could go a step further, and say that high-density customers are in fact subsidizing mass-mailers, which I think most people would agree is not a reasonable subsidy.
depressed 8y ago
If you look at the mass mailing options that the USPS markets on their website, they ask you to basically buy a whole delivery route at a time. There's no routing and sorting they have to do. The carrier just picks up a stack of letters at the start of the shift, and drops one in every mailbox. The labor cost that the USPS has to put in for a mass mailing is a fraction of what it has to do for normal mailing.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  There is another cost - the cost to society of paper garbage and dead trees. I live in a 200+ unit apartment building and recently received a mailer for hedge cutting. I promptly went to the mailroom recycling bin and threw it out, discovering about 150 identical copies thrown out by other unit residents. Obviously no one in a building needs hedge cutting — we live in apartments, not houses — but the mailer didn’t care or put much thought into even basic ad targeting. What a waste.

by baddox 8y ago

Is it not the other way around? I would think that the USPS subsidizes paper spam. I find it very hard to believe that paper spamming would be even remotely economically viable at market cost.

sjwright 8y ago

Why would USPS subsidize spam? What’s the upside to them? They have literally no incentive I can think of to do that.

T-hawk 8y ago
They subsidize it by charging a rate per piece that is less than a regular stamped mailing, but at a price level that still turns a profit. It's market segmentation, full price service for those willing to pay it, and a cheaper option for business without enough margins to justify that.
baddox 8y ago
Let me clarify my argument. Ostensibly, the goal of the USPS is to connect all of America with flat-rate first-class mail. The USPS charges as much to send a letter across the country as it does to send it to your apartment neighbor. That means that people in cities (or really, people in routes with high density first-class mail usage) subsidize people in lower-density areas. Let’s assume that we agree that this goal is reasonable, and thus that this subsidy of low-density customers by high-density customers is reasonable. This means that mass-mailers are being subsidized by the USPS’ implementation of this goal of nationwide first-class mail, because presumably they are paying less than the actual cost of mailing their advertisements. I suppose we could go a step further, and say that high-density customers are in fact subsidizing mass-mailers, which I think most people would agree is not a reasonable subsidy.

depressed 8y ago

If you look at the mass mailing options that the USPS markets on their website, they ask you to basically buy a whole delivery route at a time. There's no routing and sorting they have to do. The carrier just picks up a stack of letters at the start of the shift, and drops one in every mailbox. The labor cost that the USPS has to put in for a mass mailing is a fraction of what it has to do for normal mailing.

TuringNYC 8y ago
There is another cost - the cost to society of paper garbage and dead trees. I live in a 200+ unit apartment building and recently received a mailer for hedge cutting. I promptly went to the mailroom recycling bin and threw it out, discovering about 150 identical copies thrown out by other unit residents. Obviously no one in a building needs hedge cutting — we live in apartments, not houses — but the mailer didn’t care or put much thought into even basic ad targeting. What a waste.