5 ms·
WHAT. This is really disappointing - first time in a while I've seen an "we're shutting down" announcement and been really, truly, genuinely disappointed by it
by nlh 13y ago
WHAT.
This is really disappointing - first time in a while I've seen an "we're shutting down" announcement and been really, truly, genuinely disappointed by it.
Physical mail is but one of many small parts of daily life that's increasingly feeling like an anachronism.
The fact that we have to regularly physically go to our mailboxes, open them, receive physical paper communication, and then shred/dispose/keep it all is annoying. I was really looking forward to Outbox growing and spreading to other cities.
(BTW: It's worth noting that my rejection of paper mail doesn't mean I reject the notion of the nice parts - hand-written letters, greeting cards, wedding invitations. Those are great. But I'd be totally happy seeing a high quality digitized version of those appear in the email inbox.)
I do hope someone figures out a good solution here, because I'm certain there's demand for this service in some form or another.
(edit: As a friend pointed out - $5/month is probably far too cheap. Earth Class Mail starts at $20. I'd gladly pay that for Outbox - probably more.)
- rahulcap 13y agoTotally agree with this. Their business never made much sense in charging only $5 to "undo" what USPS does, but it worked great and is really useful when travelling. They should have tested a $19.99 price point before shutting down. I'm not sure i would have kept paying it for too long, but worth a shot.
- pbreit 13y ago$250 a year for practically nothing? I'm not sure that'd work.
- jmathai 13y agoI'm unfamiliar with the specifics of their service but if $5 wasn't working out they wouldn't be able to solve it by simply increasing the price.
- rahulcap 13y agoYeah, i guess it was just too crazy of an idea to work. I personally would have paid $20/month for at least the next 6 months as I am travelling a lot and get tons of value from remote mail access. I agree, though, that with the general value prop if its not worth $5 for most people, it is certainly not worth $20! As a side note: I'm surprised they only had 2k users with a 5M investment round. Seems like they burned cash in some expensive marketing channels.