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It's a good idea in theory. Receive books in the mail, return books in the mail. I imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books. The post office ha
by siruncledrew 7y ago
It's a good idea in theory. Receive books in the mail, return books in the mail.
I imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books. The post office having to deliver an encyclopedia would be more costly than delivering a small paperback.
Maybe there's a way to work around that. It would at least encourage the readership of physical books (and maybe books in general). I don't go to to the library either, and really don't read books that much, but it certainly would be interesting to have the capacity to see reading materials online and have them mailed to me. Then again, if they are currently available for free at the library today, I suppose there's only so many excuses to make for my own laziness.
- reaperducer 7y agoI imagine the main cost-factor is size/weight of the books. Not really. Fourth class mail used to be called "book rate." It's slow, but it's super cheap, and was established in 1879 to encourage reading and literacy. I think a better innovation would be for one of the SV "tech" delivery companies to team up with local libraries to deliver and retrieve books from people in their offices.
- rubidium 7y agoAnd steal all their data and be generally aweful vs the relative “we just pass the mail” of the USPS. No thanks.
- swimfar 7y agoBook rate is not what it costs the USPS to ship books, it's what it costs for an individual to ship books. So it's still possible that it's too expensive to make sense.
- baddox 7y agoIf only there was a way to “ship” some representation of a book from one location to another using very little energy and space.