Comment by dec0dedab0de

Comment by dec0dedab0de 21 hours ago

12 replies

I hate USPS, and will not be doing anything to benefit them until they offer a way to limit my deliveries to once a month, and opt out of anything that has "or current resident"

At the very least they should charge more for bulk mail, not give out discounts.

jonpurdy 19 hours ago

In Canada, you can place a red dot (or write no unsolicited mail) on your mailbox and they will withhold delivering anything not directly addressed to you.

I was shocked when I moved to SF and found out there was no way to opt out of unaddressed mail (or "current resident").

  • euroderf 12 hours ago

    In Finland AFAICT there's no bulk postal rate. Instead, paper spam is delivered thru mail slots by private services that hit all the buildings in the neighborhood and drop collections of paper spam. So, many people post a note on their door opting out from this stuff. (Ei mainoksia = No ads.) It must be saving absolutely huge amounts of paper.

    • sgerenser 4 hours ago

      Fun fact: in the U.S. it’s illegal to put anything but mail (delivered by USPS) in a mailbox or mail slot. USPS wants a monopoly on that paper spam.

SoftTalker 19 hours ago

Unfortunately bulk mail is the only thing paying the bills. That and being a last mile delivery service for Amazon.

  • umanwizard 18 hours ago

    Which is a totally valid reason to hate USPS.

    The USPS is a government-run spam delivery service that there is no way to opt out of. Those of us who do banking and other administrative tasks online would be better off if the government shut it down completely, or better yet subsidized it slightly so it doesn't have to deliver spam to survive.

    But as it is, I don't see any good reason to have any more respect for USPS than I do for any other spammer.

    • lkbm 15 hours ago

      Doesn't seem like USPS is the spammer. They're Gmail. People send spam and USPS/Gmail delivers it.

      • umanwizard 14 hours ago

        No, it’s completely different. Gmail actively tries to prevent spam. If they catch you sending it, you will be banned, and they let individual users block whoever they want. A huge part of their product is automated spam filtering.

        On the other hand, spam delivery is the business model of USPS. They actively and intentionally market and sell their services to spammers, and not surprisingly, give normal users no way to opt out.

    • dec0dedab0de 18 hours ago

      Yes, exactly. I wish the post office were subsidized and acted in the interests of the public. But it is not, and does not.