Outbox Is Shutting Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#21

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

evanbaehr wrote: post #15

codegeek wrote: post #5

" senior leadership of USPS made it clear that they would never participate in any project that would limit junk mail and that they were immediately shutting down our partnership." This part is really interesting. Why would USPS do that ? Can someone from outbox elaborate on this ? I would love to get rid of the junk mail that I receive on a daily basis in my mailbox. It is crazy and I have to waste time in taking it…

Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer; American citizens (and our kitchen tables) are their product. It's like the old line: if you aren't paying for the service, you are the product. If curious, listen to a full story of it here: http://kut.org/post/austin-startup-says-you-ll-never-touch-s...

> Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer...

Not so sadly, doing so allows more reasonable rates for normal mail.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#22

Post by BryanB55 » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

I'm an Outbox customer and am really sad to see it go. I did it expect it though. In fact, every time I thought of Outbox it was always accompanied with worry about them shutting down. I just couldn't see how they could afford to do what they do when customers only pay $5 per month.

I didn't read the entire post yet but I wonder why they never tried to or considered raising prices. I would of paid substantially more for the service.

I don't see all that much value in the service for my personal mail but for my business mail, I purchased a UPS mailbox and have all mail sent there and outbox takes care of it for me without me having to go there all the time. I just renewed my UPS mailbox for the year too!

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#23

Post by shravan » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:17 PM UTC

I'm terribly sad about this. I was eagerly anticipating their rollout to my market and would've happily paid more than the $5/month charge for the benefit of never opening another piece of junk mail again.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#24

Post by fuadksd » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:22 PM UTC

When you control the mail, you control... information!

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#25

Post by evanm » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

A truly great service. I'd even be willing to pay 3-4x. My apt building is from the early 1900s and my tiny mailbox overfills after 1-2 days -- it's been wonderful to not have to come back from vacation to a clogged box. Outbox has saved me all kinds of time and patience and am terribly sad to see them go. Best of luck to the team in their next project!

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#26

Post by AustinScript » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:41 PM UTC

I despise mail. I check it once a month and my box is crammed the max with ads and the important mail items are crumpled. I would unsubscribe from all mail if such a thing was possible.

I loved Outbox and will miss the service, however I do agree with the poster below. 5$ seemed like a steal.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#27

Post by jonknee » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:48 PM UTC

doughj3 wrote: post #7

codegeek wrote: post #5

" senior leadership of USPS made it clear that they would never participate in any project that would limit junk mail and that they were immediately shutting down our partnership." This part is really interesting. Why would USPS do that ? Can someone from outbox elaborate on this ? I would love to get rid of the junk mail that I receive on a daily basis in my mailbox. It is crazy and I have to waste time in taking it…

Junkmail effectively subsidizes the USPS.

The much more expensive first class mail could be thought of as the subsidy--it allows the USPS to funnel buckets of cheap junk mail into our boxes.

Except for package delivery it's all unprofitable though, especially in rural areas.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#28

Post by JoshTriplett » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:51 PM UTC

It sounds like their original business model got shut down due to positioning: they pitched it as reducing postal spam, and in the proces they attracted unwanted attention from the USPS, who profit from postal spam.

Meanwhile, Earth Class Mail (https://www.earthclassmail.com/) seems to be going strong following the same "digitize your mail" approach. They don't seem to build their business around spam reduction specifically, just around paper reduction, which doesn't threaten the USPS.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#29

Post by digikata » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:51 PM UTC

With the listed problems getting to breakeven density, marketing traction, and a mention of an email marketing campaign for what is a physical->electronic mail service, I can't help but wonder if Outbox had ever ran a physical junk mail campaign for targeted physical addresses in order to push up the customer density. (not meant as a criticism, just idle curiosity)

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#30

Post by cjoh » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:51 PM UTC

Seems really strange that they're shutting down. With a substantial customer list and some infrastructure that's hard to build, that's a business that could be sold for something -- perhaps not substantial exit money, but still.

That said, they were charging less than what the service cost to provide, and -- judging from the comments here -- less than what their customers valued their services for. So perhaps they didn't have a good idea of what value is and how to sell it.