> 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.
Good point! However, those spammers are doing some good because they're paying money to stamp their mail, which goes to employ mail personel, etc. For that reason I feel good when I throw away credit card letters while saying "Dear greedy creditor, No I don't want your raping fees, but thank you for paying money for me to throw this letter in recycling."
“There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
21–30 of 179 posts
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#22The real loser here is netflix. 17% increase in delivery time and not a damn thing you can do about it. Ouch.
Maybe that's ok, since in the future most of their customers will probably want to watch everything online (through them) anyway.
I agree. I think netflix has made it quite apparent that they are looking for instant streaming as the model for the future. They already have aligned their website to feature the instant streaming over their mail service, they have teamed up with the gaming consoles to enhance the instant streaming experience and it sounds as if they have made a way for the iPad to have instant streaming.
This change might hurt them in the short run, but I would think Netflix would love to be a streaming only company!
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#23> 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.
Good point! However, those spammers are doing some good because they're paying money to stamp their mail, which goes to employ mail personel, etc. For that reason I feel good when I throw away credit card letters while saying "Dear greedy creditor, No I don't want your raping fees, but thank you for paying money for me to throw this letter in recycling."
"[USPS] fiscal 2009 year-to-date net loss is $4.7 billion"
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2009/pr09_066.ht...
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#24While I don't doubt volumes have fallen as a result of things like email, the US postal service also hasn't done itself any favors. You read anecdotes like this, and it's a wonder that volumes haven't plummeted even faster: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/things-a...
I don't get it. I am routinely subject to silly, unfriendly, inexplicable () policies and restrictions when dealing with private corporations. It sounds like there's supposed to be some conservative message here about the superiority of the free market, but it falls flat.
Actually, such polices are usually quite easily explained by the simple logic that there isn't any money in caring too much about edge cases.
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#25> 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.
Good point! However, those spammers are doing some good because they're paying money to stamp their mail, which goes to employ mail personel, etc. For that reason I feel good when I throw away credit card letters while saying "Dear greedy creditor, No I don't want your raping fees, but thank you for paying money for me to throw this letter in recycling."
That money didn't come out of thin air.. It results in higher fees for their customers which means the customer spends less with other companies who then don't hire people, etc etc.
Using your logic it would follow that email spammers are doing some good because they're using bandwidth (jobs for everyone from Cisco to ditch diggers) and create a market for people to combat spam. Stimulus!
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#26The real loser here is netflix. 17% increase in delivery time and not a damn thing you can do about it. Ouch.
In 10-20 years I question whether there will be a Netflix. Already cable and tv companies are moving in with On-demand movie rentals. While the film industry will fight the decline of physical rentals tooth and nail eventually they won't have a choice.
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#27The real loser here is netflix. 17% increase in delivery time and not a damn thing you can do about it. Ouch.
I honestly had no idea that mail was delivered on Saturdays until I got a Netflix subscription. I thought there must've been some sort of mistake when I saw "For Saturday: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen", but when I checked the mailbox that Saturday, there was mail in it.
I still only check the mail on Saturdays when I know a movie will be waiting for me.
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe that's ok, since in the future most of their customers will probably want to watch everything online (through them) anyway.
I agree. I think netflix has made it quite apparent that they are looking for instant streaming as the model for the future. They already have aligned their website to feature the instant streaming over their mail service, they have teamed up with the gaming consoles to enhance the instant streaming experience and it sounds as if they have made a way for the iPad to have instant streaming. This change might hurt them…
I think streaming is _one_ of their products for the future, but I'd bet blue ray dvds are also a significant growth area both for them and the movie studios. There's going to be a war before those studios will let netflix stream recent releases in HD.
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#29This made me wonder whether it was a good deal to buy "forever" stamps:
Re: “There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery.”
#30The real loser here is netflix. 17% increase in delivery time and not a damn thing you can do about it. Ouch.
Well you could get a PO box and still have your Saturday movies. Or just use the streams, mail is on its way out.