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Why should you have to pay a national service to NOT deliver you junk mail? If your government isn’t serving you, why would you double down and assume additiona

by rhexs 5y ago

Why should you have to pay a national service to NOT deliver you junk mail? If your government isn’t serving you, why would you double down and assume additional funding will address the issue?

seanp2k2 5y ago
Totally agree, just for some reason it’s unfathomable in this country that there could be a government-provided service that runs at a loss because it’s something that everyone benefits from that needs to be a government service precisely because it couldn’t realistically run at a profit without, say, doing something really backwards, like physically spamming people with no way to opt out. I’ll also point out that without junk mail, they could reduce OpEx quite a bit, and that should be factored into the equation as well. Package delivery services don’t stop at each address each day, and without junk mail, most households wouldn’t receive something in the mail each day. Same with trash collection — literally 95% of the mail we receive goes directly into bin, and I’m sure landfills are composed of a not-insignificant amount of junk mail. Excessive traffic and road wear from more mail delivery vehicles is probably less significant, but still caused by this. So, in addition to the environmental harm and annoyance of junk mail, the ridiculous situation we find in costs more than just the apparent “lost revenue” we’d have without it. It’s not like the government doesn’t spend way more per household per year on far lower value things than guaranteed physical mail delivery. Imagine if politicians got national parks in their crosshairs, they were deemed not profitable enough, and the proposed solution was to start selling ad space in prominent outdoor locations, like Yosemite. Just picture Half Dome, with a nice fat “BROUGHT TO YOU BY XFINITY, HOME OF THE PACKAGE”.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Do you really receive junk every day? In the UK, the cheap junk mailing rate allows Royal Mail to delay delivery for several days, to suit their schedule. They naturally batch it up. This is also appropriate for a lot of commercial non-junk mail. In Denmark, it is delivered around once a week, probably with a similar system. In both countries, I opted out of all junk mail. I receive a paper letter every 6 weeks or so.

by rhexs 5y ago

Why should you have to pay a national service to NOT deliver you junk mail? If your government isn’t serving you, why would you double down and assume additional funding will address the issue?

seanp2k2 5y ago

Totally agree, just for some reason it’s unfathomable in this country that there could be a government-provided service that runs at a loss because it’s something that everyone benefits from that needs to be a government service precisely because it couldn’t realistically run at a profit without, say, doing something really backwards, like physically spamming people with no way to opt out. I’ll also point out that without junk mail, they could reduce OpEx quite a bit, and that should be factored into the equation as well. Package delivery services don’t stop at each address each day, and without junk mail, most households wouldn’t receive something in the mail each day. Same with trash collection — literally 95% of the mail we receive goes directly into bin, and I’m sure landfills are composed of a not-insignificant amount of junk mail. Excessive traffic and road wear from more mail delivery vehicles is probably less significant, but still caused by this. So, in addition to the environmental harm and annoyance of junk mail, the ridiculous situation we find in costs more than just the apparent “lost revenue” we’d have without it. It’s not like the government doesn’t spend way more per household per year on far lower value things than guaranteed physical mail delivery. Imagine if politicians got national parks in their crosshairs, they were deemed not profitable enough, and the proposed solution was to start selling ad space in prominent outdoor locations, like Yosemite. Just picture Half Dome, with a nice fat “BROUGHT TO YOU BY XFINITY, HOME OF THE PACKAGE”.

Symbiote 5y ago
Do you really receive junk every day? In the UK, the cheap junk mailing rate allows Royal Mail to delay delivery for several days, to suit their schedule. They naturally batch it up. This is also appropriate for a lot of commercial non-junk mail. In Denmark, it is delivered around once a week, probably with a similar system. In both countries, I opted out of all junk mail. I receive a paper letter every 6 weeks or so.