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“There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

usps.com

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Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#141

Post by roc »

funkdobiest wrote: post #97
jrockway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control. You can buy a widget and do whatever you want with it, including mailing it around. You can't do this on the Internet, though, because computers are magical and Someone Could Copy It!1111!!

you would think they would catch on that physical media is easily copyable where the instant downloads aren't so why not do instant for everything first then DVD.

They do. But they release it to Pay-Per-View and On Demand services for more money than they get from Netflix, then they get Netflix's money anyway.

They view Netflix as more of an analogue to the "TV Syndication" stage of a property's life. Until Netflix has a 'premium' club paying more for early access to new material (so that Netflix can pay more in streaming license fees), they'll continue to see it as such.

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#142

Post by chancho »

orblivion wrote: post #75
sachinag wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the mandatory requirements for full service in unprofitable areas. The USPS literally has a plane that goes weekly to the most isolated part of Idaho: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/us/30idaho.html There's no way a private contractor could/would do that.

In the long run I don't see that as a problem. People should pay a premium if their lifestyle takes up more resources like that.

You are not subsidizing their ability to receive mail from you. You are paying for your ability to send mail to them. It's the same rationale as the universal service fund for phones. A network like the phone or mail network reaches it's full potential only when it connects everybody.

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#143

Post by smallblacksun »

hnal943 wrote: post #63
tsally wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time the US postal service comes up in discussion, someone invariably mentions how life would be so much better if the service was privatized. I think this argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of public services; the post office is perhaps the canonical example of an extremely important service that only can exist in the public sector. As others have mentioned already ( http://news.ycombinator.com…

The essential service here is mail delivery, not mail delivery "under a dollar."

The essential service is universal mail delivery for a uniform (not cheaper to mail something to Chicago than Bumblefuck, WY), reasonable cost. Could/would private companies do that? Reply hazy, try again

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#144

Post by lionhearted »

jonknee wrote: post #9

> Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three. ... And it would receive much less than that if the USPS wasn't mostly a delivery network for spam.

> ... And it would receive much less than that if the USPS wasn't mostly a delivery network for spam.

A few years ago, I lived in Boston and traveled a lot of short trips for work. When I'd get back, my mailbox would always be crammed full of junk, crushing my mail.

One day, I ran into my postman, and I said, "Hey there, I travel a lot, I'm not gone long, but my mail gets crushed. Can I just leave a sticky note here and ask you not to deliver the ads to me? I don't want them."

He said, "Sorry, the post office is paid to deliver the mail, and that's what we do. We deliver all mail. You can ask the post office to hold your mail for you and go pick it up at the post office when you get back from traveling, though."

I was kind of stunned. Can you imagine a private business delivering you junk that you don't want and you can't refuse it? How outraged would people be if FedEx dropped off samples of cleaning products and miscellaneous junk and refused to stop, thus damaging your regular packages in the process?

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#145

Post by jedberg »

ryanelkins wrote: post #99
jonknee wrote: post #9

> Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three. ... And it would receive much less than that if the USPS wasn't mostly a delivery network for spam.

Here is what I hate about the USPS and spam. I opened a PO Box to receive rental payments on some properties I owned. The only people who got this address were tenants. It wasn't used for anything else. I'd check it once a month and it would be crammed full of ads. By crammed I mean seriously tightly wedged full of junk. I'd have to pick through it all to try and find my rent checks and not throw them out with the ad…

> How did they (advertisers) know this box was open and active?

The post office told them -- hey sell their customer list.

:(

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#146

Post by tsally »

solutionyogi wrote: post #134
tsally wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a gross simplification. Let's expand this discussion to public verses private. I'm going to talk about education instead of the USPS because I know more about education. Goal of a public education system: provide actual learning, understanding, and life-long skills to everyone. Goal of a private education system: maximize profits by providing competitive diplomas as cheaply as possible. See the issue? The pri…

It's interesting. When you simplify USPS as essential service, it's fine. But if I take your 'essential service' argument and simplify it even further, I am doing 'gross simplification'. Please don't even get me started on public education in United States. I would gladly allow 3 more USPS organizations to waste taxpayer's money if they get rid of public schools and adopt a school voucher system. Please look for 'Stu…

Please look for 'Stupid in America' show on YouTube and watch it. It will seriously change your opinion about public schools.

I'm aware of the documentary, and as usual, it completely misses the point. I'm intimately familiar with the inner workings of America's public and private schools (both the best and the worst on both sides). For the past several years I've had daily exposure to pretty much all angles of this issue. I suspect you've simply watched a 45 minute Youtube video and liked how microfoundations sounded when it was taught to you in school. I could write for hours on the horrors of private school vouchers alone (did you know when they tried it in Arizona, 3/4ths of the money ended up going to students who were already in private schools? [1]). And lets not even get into the fact that private schools actually don't perform that much better than public schools [2] when you account for the diversity in public schools. Considering that private schools mostly teach to a homogeneous student body, they should be blowing the public schools out of the water. They're actually not that much cheaper either, when you consider that private schools don't need to spend nearly as much money on special education programs and psychological therapy [3]. If I was a school admin I could post the most impressive numbers in the country if I'm allowed to skim from the cream of the crop, but public schools by law are not allowed to do so. However, I suspect at this point expending any more energy on this issue wasted effort since you seem dead set in your ways.

[1] http://www.gregpalast.com/no-childs-behind-left/

[2] http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461

[3] http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/10/private-school-tuition-1...

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#147

Post by laut »

dpcan wrote: post #78

Why can't I get/pay for a USPS.com email address of my physical address? 123MainSt.MyCity.State.Zip@usps.com? Anything that is emailed to this address must pay postage, but the message body or attachment can be printed, certified and delivered to my physical location? Maybe this isn't the perfect idea, but if the USPS would just embrace technology and innovate a little, they could really increase their revenues.

Government monopoly.

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#148

Post by irons »

wmf wrote: post #139
jrockway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control. You can buy a widget and do whatever you want with it, including mailing it around. You can't do this on the Internet, though, because computers are magical and Someone Could Copy It!1111!!

What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control. Have you noticed the Netflix and Redbox release windowing? First sale, what first sale?

Netflix and Redbox cut good deals in exchange for those windows -- they pay less for the discs, and Netflix got expanded licensing for its streaming service. First sale rights aren't at issue. Just look at the Weinstein Company discs that announce "this disc for sale only" before the opening credits, which Netflix happily buys and rents out.

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#149

Post by anamax »

dantheman wrote: post #74
anamax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need to handle the spam, simply stop subsidizing it with a bulk mail discount. The USPS claims that bulk mail more than pays its way. In fact, there's a federal law requiring that. Yes, bulk mail does pay a lower rate. However, it must obey certain constraints which the USPS claims result in significantly lower costs. In other words, bulk mail is supposedly profitable even though they charge less for it. If you'…

I don't think anyone is saying they don't make money off of spam, just that they shouldn't be encouraging it. If spammers had to pay full price perhaps we'd see less of it, or if not then the postal service would make more money.

In other words, you want the USPS to discriminate on something other than cost of delivery.

Why should we enact your preferences instead of, say, mine?

Note that it's quite possible that spam is helping to keep first class postage prices down. (Eliminating 30% of the USPS's revenue does not eliminate 30% of their costs. FWIW, I suspect that direct mail is a greater percentage of their revenue than 30%.)

While you may willing to pay more to send USPS mail in return for getting less spam, other people probably aren't.

Which reminds me - you have gone to the very slight trouble of the first two steps listed at http://www.epa.gov/region1/communities/stop_spam.html , right?

Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”

#150

Post by jacoblyles »

ryanelkins wrote: post #99
jonknee wrote: post #9

> Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three. ... And it would receive much less than that if the USPS wasn't mostly a delivery network for spam.

Here is what I hate about the USPS and spam. I opened a PO Box to receive rental payments on some properties I owned. The only people who got this address were tenants. It wasn't used for anything else. I'd check it once a month and it would be crammed full of ads. By crammed I mean seriously tightly wedged full of junk. I'd have to pick through it all to try and find my rent checks and not throw them out with the ad…

I wonder if we ended the postal monopoly if we would see private carriers compete on quality of service by trying such things as not spamming you.
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