Better title: "Libertarians Find Out Delivering Mail Is Hard and Expensive"
I rarely use this phrase, but I LOL'ed at this one.
Outbox Is Shutting Down
51–60 of 97 posts
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#52I may be wrong, but my impression of Outbox has always been that they were designing an impressive solution to the wrong problem. Sorting my important mail from my junk mail is just not something I need help with. And the extraordinary wastefulness in my mind of paying a company to follow postmen around and take back the mail just delivered to my box seems so ecologically wrong that I couldn't support it on that grou…
I agree 100%. It's a pretty epic idea they had, but I know few people who need it.
I also found the government bashing at the end to be pretty weird, given that they failed to explain why the USPS should want to partner with them, let alone how the entire government is backwards.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#53" 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…
Employee unions at the USPS worried about further job losses due to technology. Can't do anything that would decrease revenue, even if it means technological progress.
This comment is garbage. Do you think the CEO of USPS wants to decrease revenue? Hell no.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#54Better title: "Libertarians Find Out Delivering Mail Is Hard and Expensive"
Classic Bob the Angry Flower:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmsoUYOh5Ak/Tx7K8aL_b5I/AAAAAAAAAW...
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
50 cents to send a piece of paper across the continent in just a couple of days is a bargain as far as I'm concerned. A dollar will even get your piece of paper across the world in just a few more days than that. It's quite unbelievable that it works so well for such a cheap price.
I'm addressing my wedding invitations and skimming through Hacker News this afternoon. $25 to mail about two dozen envelopes (invite plus stamped rsvp), and half a dozen more with international addresses or additional weight that I'm taking to the post office in half an hour. And that's the bare minimum I could get away with sending paper invites to, everyone else is getting evites. Then there's a round of rehearsal…
You can "opt-out" of quite a bit (most?) junk mail: https://www.dmachoice.org/
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#56There is one small nugget in the article that demonstrates exactly why they failed:
"This final challenge—product market fit"
They invested a very large amount of money, and put the most important challenge at the very end.
"This final challenge" should never, ever, ever be the final challenge. Product-market fit should be the first challenge. Everything flows from matching the product to the market. The fact that they believed this was "the final challenge" shows that they were making decisions in the wrong way -- a way that brought them failure.
I only hope they consider profit/market fit BEFORE they spend more of their investors money.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#57WHAT. 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…
Totally 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.
$250 a year for practically nothing? I'm not sure that'd work.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#58Just a FYI there are a handful of companies already doing something very similar. Except instead of physically picking up your mail, they receive it on your behalf (made possible by USPS form 1583 [1]). Then they digitize and forward (you pay S&H.) [1] http://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf
I'd been wanting something like this as I have a few physical mailboxes but rarely need the physical mail itself. Do you have any useful links to the 1583-based providers?
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#59Damn. I have a post office box located in SF that's my main mailing address, but I live in Seattle right now. I suppose it was my own fault relying on them exclusively and not having a backup plan, but does anyone know any service that does something similar to outbox mail? I'd love to keep using my SF address.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#60" 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…
It is time we had a donotcall.gov equivalent for junk mails.
The UK has such a scheme: the Mailing Preference Service (http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/)
It is the mail equivalent of the Telephone Preference Service (http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/)