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Outbox Is Shutting Down

blog.outboxmail.com

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Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#71

Post by yid »

mgkimsal wrote: post #64
yid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USPS employs 522,144 [1] voting humans who depend on junk mail for paychecks and pensions; email considerably fewer. Edit: source [1] http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/#H1

"email considerably fewer." How so? I'd say that number is actually much higher.

You think that the email spam industry collectively employs more than 500,000 full-time voting adults, rather than a relative handful of humans and tons of bots? It's fine if you do, my hunch is just different.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#72

Post by grmarcil »

jingala wrote: post #53
wwwarhawk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine you're the CEO of a business that is bleeding cash left, right, and center, and someone comes to you with a plan that will reduce your revenue 20% while reducing your costs 50%. You don't think you'd consider that plan even for a second?

I'm not saying such a plan would work for USPS, and definitely not saying Outbox could have brought that sort of value proposition to USPS, but reducing revenue is not always a poor business decision.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#73

Post by lhl »

zyxley wrote: post #47
encoderer wrote: post #40

I 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…

This is definitely my view. I'd honestly be happy just to see a service in the "use us as your mailing address" market with lower and less byzantine pricing than Earth Class Mail ($20/mo plus $5/mo for searchable PDFs, $1.50/piece to actually scan mail, $20 to deposit a check, $4.95/mo to shred mail, $0.30/mo/piece to store mail, etc.) and without the subtly deceitful tactics of VirtualPostMail (auto-applied promo co…

zyxley, have you found any other good options? One issue it seems w/ all these services is it seems like it's easy to setup w/ a Form 1583, but none of these guys provide any sort of forwarding options for when you want to cancel!

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#74

Post by dnr »

zyxley wrote: post #47
encoderer wrote: post #40

I 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…

This is definitely my view. I'd honestly be happy just to see a service in the "use us as your mailing address" market with lower and less byzantine pricing than Earth Class Mail ($20/mo plus $5/mo for searchable PDFs, $1.50/piece to actually scan mail, $20 to deposit a check, $4.95/mo to shred mail, $0.30/mo/piece to store mail, etc.) and without the subtly deceitful tactics of VirtualPostMail (auto-applied promo co…

The VirtualPostMail pricing page may be confusing, but I think calling it deceitful is a stretch. I think the prices are reasonable for the service they provide. It may even be cheaper than it looks, as I don't think they enforce the storage limits (I've definitely had stuff sitting there for many months with no fees). It's true that their web app could use an overhaul, but it was nicer than ECM's at the time I compared them.

(I have no affiliation, I've just been a satisfied customer for a few years.)

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#75

Post by rahulcap »

jmathai wrote: post #66
rahulcap wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'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.

Yeah, 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.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#76

Post by jkestner »

encoderer wrote: post #40

I 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'd agree on the surface, but I thought I'd support a fellow Austin startup and try the experience anyway. The manual labor I knew was a hack. Beyond that, it's been really nice. Just lower cognitive load - I used to just pile mail when I came home, not interested in sorting through it. If email spam filters were a paid service, that would totally be worth $5 too. Pushing all those big images around must've been taxing for the app, though - its sluggishness took away some of the fun of pushing my physical mail around on a touchscreen.

Good luck with the next thing, guys! Glad you tried for a big problem.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#77

Post by zyxley »

dnr wrote: post #74
zyxley wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely my view. I'd honestly be happy just to see a service in the "use us as your mailing address" market with lower and less byzantine pricing than Earth Class Mail ($20/mo plus $5/mo for searchable PDFs, $1.50/piece to actually scan mail, $20 to deposit a check, $4.95/mo to shred mail, $0.30/mo/piece to store mail, etc.) and without the subtly deceitful tactics of VirtualPostMail (auto-applied promo co…

The VirtualPostMail pricing page may be confusing, but I think calling it deceitful is a stretch. I think the prices are reasonable for the service they provide. It may even be cheaper than it looks, as I don't think they enforce the storage limits (I've definitely had stuff sitting there for many months with no fees). It's true that their web app could use an overhaul, but it was nicer than ECM's at the time I compa…

Well, that's why I said subtly. It's not blatant about it, but it is a deceitful approach.

These kind of tactics are familiar to me from previously working in the web hosting industry, where the tricks of "the eye-catching price is actually the temporary one, you have to look in the details for the real price" and "a coupon code makes it look like your service can do more than it can" are very common.

So is the aftermath, with many people who are confused and upset when the "temporary" part runs out but not quite confused and upset enough to cancel the service.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#78

Post by dnr »

zyxley wrote: post #77
dnr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VirtualPostMail pricing page may be confusing, but I think calling it deceitful is a stretch. I think the prices are reasonable for the service they provide. It may even be cheaper than it looks, as I don't think they enforce the storage limits (I've definitely had stuff sitting there for many months with no fees). It's true that their web app could use an overhaul, but it was nicer than ECM's at the time I compa…

Well, that's why I said subtly . It's not blatant about it, but it is a deceitful approach. These kind of tactics are familiar to me from previously working in the web hosting industry, where the tricks of "the eye-catching price is actually the temporary one, you have to look in the details for the real price" and "a coupon code makes it look like your service can do more than it can" are very common. So is the afte…

The half-price for the first few months is misleading, I admit. I'm a careful reader so it didn't bother me.

The coupon code thing is a little weird, but I don't see how you can complain about it: it only increases your limits. It's just a way for them to offer two types of plans: one for people who like to scan most mail, and one for people who don't.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#79

Post by billnguyen »

Crazy. Some of the comments on this old TechCrunch article about the economics of Outbox look Nostradamus-like

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/25/outbox-digitizes-sf-snail-m...

It just never fully made economic sense. Especially with the overhead of undoing something that was just done, mail delivery.

Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down

#80

Post by morganm »

zyxley wrote: post #47
encoderer wrote: post #40

I 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…

This is definitely my view. I'd honestly be happy just to see a service in the "use us as your mailing address" market with lower and less byzantine pricing than Earth Class Mail ($20/mo plus $5/mo for searchable PDFs, $1.50/piece to actually scan mail, $20 to deposit a check, $4.95/mo to shred mail, $0.30/mo/piece to store mail, etc.) and without the subtly deceitful tactics of VirtualPostMail (auto-applied promo co…

I've been using Traveling Mailbox (travelingmailbox.com) for about a year and they've been great. First class customer support and very reasonable prices. My only complaint would be that using the NV satellite address introduces some lag as they forward items to NC for processing. Their web interface is functional and easy to use.

I used to be an ECM customer way back when, before they tripled their pricing as you mentioned.

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