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Not broadly a fan of what this admin is doing, but re: USPS: my family gets one, maybe two important pieces of mail a year. We get several pieces of worthless j

by api 2y ago

Not broadly a fan of what this admin is doing, but re: USPS: my family gets one, maybe two important pieces of mail a year. We get several pieces of worthless junk mail every day. Virtually everything the USPS delivers goes instantly into the trash. The same is true for my company. In fact I'm not sure we received one piece of physical mail in the past year of any consequence. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, but some reduction in frequency of delivery could save a lot of money. Either that or raise the cost and kill junk mail.

Eisenstein 2y ago
Do you think that the USPS pays deliver junk mail?
rkagerer 2y ago
Do you live in a rural or urban area? How many Amazon packages do you get, and items from other carriers?
matthewdgreen 2y ago
If the USPS is delivering junk mail below the cost of delivery, that would be bad and they should immediately stop that. But I would be willing to bet that's not happening. I don't like junk mail one bit, but it's obviously a profit center and I assume that revenue defrays the cost of other services.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  This is hilarious where people get to the point that they will defend junk mail because it suits their political purposes. Junk mail is bad. Full stop.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    Junk mail is bad. But voters going around thinking that taxpayers are funding junk mail is much worse. If large fractions of the citizenry can’t apply common sense and develop a working mental model of how the world works, we’re all dead. And I don’t mean that figuratively.
    - ryaniscool 2y ago
      In 2011, most of what the USPS delivered was junk mail[0] and it's only gotten worse[1]. Junk mailers pay less per item than first-class mailers (actual mail). The USPS operates at a multi-billion dollar loss every year. Intuitively, we're subsidizing junk mail. If you get lots of important items 6 days a week via first-class mail then I can see you having the perspective of junk mail is actually subsidizing this important service. However, my guess is that most people don't. This is based on my own lived personal experiences and those of the extended network of people in my social circle. It's not made in a vacuum. Therefore common sense is that we're subsidizing an errand of cleaning trash out of our mailboxes several times a week. I get that people are sensitive to government services under the current political climate but there is no reason we couldn't cut back service to say 5 days a week instead of 6. [0]https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-junk-mail-is-helping-to-prop-up-the-postal-service/ https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-jun... [1]https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2062562/junk-mail https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2062562/junk-mail
      - matthewdgreen 2y ago
        "Intuitively, we're subsidizing junk mail." This is not intuitive. We're maintaining a service because we have made a democratic decision to provide that service. The junk mail is subsidizing that service. I hate junk mail too, but we don't get to claim that the sky is "down" just because we're standing on our heads. We could make a decision to cut back service if we want, but we haven't. I strongly suspect that part of the reason we haven't decided to cut back the postal service is that many voters are elderly and find the postal service vastly more essential than young technical people on HN do. I'm not in a position to tell society that it's wrong. (And frankly, given that we barely have a working electronic payment infrastructure in this country that can serve that audience, I'm not sure we're ready to do that.)
vwcx 2y ago
Why is your instinct, based solely on your observed experience, to reduce services for the entirety of the American populus rather than a less destructive route, like households opting out of mail delivery? I suspect it's because you do receive "one or two important" pieces per year and because you cannot anticipate when someone will send them to you. That's the value provided to all Americans by this beautiful system.
reaperducer 2y ago
my family gets one, maybe two important pieces of mail a year. Your experience is not the only experience. There are another 300 million Americans with different needs than yours. And it's hubris to pretend that your way and your life is superior to everyone else.
namirez 2y ago
You understand that USPS is not sending you junk mail but some advertiser pays them to do so, right? So perhaps you are suggesting that USPS should increase the rates? Because otherwise your comment doesn’t make much sense.
bradfa 2y ago
My family receives multiple pieces of mail each week which are important and valued. Losing the USPS entirely or reducing to once a week delivery would be very much noticed here.
ryaniscool 2y ago
Yep, same here, and it's bizarre that people seem offended and are downvoting this comment. The only reason I can this being downvoted is people see this as a political discussion. It really isn't. As people have turned to email and bills get delivered online, we're subsidizing junk mail in a sense because the USPS operates at a loss.

by api 2y ago

Eisenstein 2y ago

Do you think that the USPS pays deliver junk mail?

rkagerer 2y ago

Do you live in a rural or urban area? How many Amazon packages do you get, and items from other carriers?

matthewdgreen 2y ago

If the USPS is delivering junk mail below the cost of delivery, that would be bad and they should immediately stop that. But I would be willing to bet that's not happening. I don't like junk mail one bit, but it's obviously a profit center and I assume that revenue defrays the cost of other services.

rufus_foreman 2y ago
This is hilarious where people get to the point that they will defend junk mail because it suits their political purposes. Junk mail is bad. Full stop.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  Junk mail is bad. But voters going around thinking that taxpayers are funding junk mail is much worse. If large fractions of the citizenry can’t apply common sense and develop a working mental model of how the world works, we’re all dead. And I don’t mean that figuratively.
  - ryaniscool 2y ago
    In 2011, most of what the USPS delivered was junk mail[0] and it's only gotten worse[1]. Junk mailers pay less per item than first-class mailers (actual mail). The USPS operates at a multi-billion dollar loss every year. Intuitively, we're subsidizing junk mail. If you get lots of important items 6 days a week via first-class mail then I can see you having the perspective of junk mail is actually subsidizing this important service. However, my guess is that most people don't. This is based on my own lived personal experiences and those of the extended network of people in my social circle. It's not made in a vacuum. Therefore common sense is that we're subsidizing an errand of cleaning trash out of our mailboxes several times a week. I get that people are sensitive to government services under the current political climate but there is no reason we couldn't cut back service to say 5 days a week instead of 6. [0]https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-junk-mail-is-helping-to-prop-up-the-postal-service/ https://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/09/27/how-jun... [1]https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2062562/junk-mail https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2062562/junk-mail
    - matthewdgreen 2y ago
      "Intuitively, we're subsidizing junk mail." This is not intuitive. We're maintaining a service because we have made a democratic decision to provide that service. The junk mail is subsidizing that service. I hate junk mail too, but we don't get to claim that the sky is "down" just because we're standing on our heads. We could make a decision to cut back service if we want, but we haven't. I strongly suspect that part of the reason we haven't decided to cut back the postal service is that many voters are elderly and find the postal service vastly more essential than young technical people on HN do. I'm not in a position to tell society that it's wrong. (And frankly, given that we barely have a working electronic payment infrastructure in this country that can serve that audience, I'm not sure we're ready to do that.)

vwcx 2y ago

Why is your instinct, based solely on your observed experience, to reduce services for the entirety of the American populus rather than a less destructive route, like households opting out of mail delivery? I suspect it's because you do receive "one or two important" pieces per year and because you cannot anticipate when someone will send them to you. That's the value provided to all Americans by this beautiful system.

reaperducer 2y ago

my family gets one, maybe two important pieces of mail a year. Your experience is not the only experience. There are another 300 million Americans with different needs than yours. And it's hubris to pretend that your way and your life is superior to everyone else.

namirez 2y ago

You understand that USPS is not sending you junk mail but some advertiser pays them to do so, right? So perhaps you are suggesting that USPS should increase the rates? Because otherwise your comment doesn’t make much sense.

bradfa 2y ago

My family receives multiple pieces of mail each week which are important and valued. Losing the USPS entirely or reducing to once a week delivery would be very much noticed here.

ryaniscool 2y ago

Yep, same here, and it's bizarre that people seem offended and are downvoting this comment. The only reason I can this being downvoted is people see this as a political discussion. It really isn't. As people have turned to email and bills get delivered online, we're subsidizing junk mail in a sense because the USPS operates at a loss.