this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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512
Market Disruptor (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I ran into my mail lady when I was getting my mail the other day. Turns out she had just tossed everything a few days before and started lecturing me on not letting my mailbox fill up.

I went there to get a new card that Id been informed was sent a few days ago and asked her how it got so full.

Then I saw all the junk mail she was shoving in and , not thinking, asked her if I could unsubscribe from all the obvious crap because mail is almost useless these days. She got a sad look on her face and I almost felt bad

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Flyers are a big part of our salary. We lose money every time someone asks to be put on the list. I don't know how often you check your box, but some people on my route don't check for months. I don't give those people flyers once it fills up. But if you're still getting mail and we have to clear out the flyers to make room, we do tend to get a little annoyed.

She should have simply asked if you like flyers.
You can not like flyers but still get flyers since you didn't ask to be put on the list. We usually know which ones don't like or don't care about flyers. If you leave a note taped to the bottom of your box at the front so that we see our while we're working, we'll usually not give you flyers while also forgetting to report it when we get back to the office. There are lots of options that let us bend the rules. We'll work with you if you give us a chance.

Addressed ad mail is a different story. We legally have to deliver everything as addressed, even junk mail. Those you have to fight with whoever is sending you that crap.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hang on, why are you penalized if mail customers don't want flyers?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

USPS makes money from postage. Flyers require paid postage. If you indicate you don't want to receive offers or flyers, that's less money for the USPS.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (4 children)

And usps sees fit to pass those losses on to postmen?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

Well Rs decided it needed to be run as a business but also "future proof" itself (unlike a business) by preparing money now for all future postmen as well. Conservatives also prevented usps from making a secure certified email service. Of course we also still have dejoy the dismantler at the helm.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I don't believe it is passed directly to them. Though I could be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Mail volume is checked once a year for rebalancing mailboxes on routes among an office's employees. The volume on a route during mail count also affects salary, even though it varies throughout the year. So yes, less spam mail does impact the post person, though it'd have to be on a much larger scale to be significant and occur during mail count season (spring time iirc). I doubt it's specifically because of less postage being collected from less mail, but it does match proportionally how much mail a mail carrier delivers and how many units are on their route.

Source: parent is a rural mail carrier

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Good to know I am not the only one who does not check my mail for months

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

If it makes you feel better I love junk flyers because it's free bird cage liners for me. And the nicer quality the paper the easier it is to clean up after my birds. I've actually had friends save their junk mail for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Addressed marketing is the reason my letterbox gets so full.

The previous 7 tenants of my unit haven't updated their address (why would they? It's just catalogues, newsletters and flyers, they're not even enveloped, they just have an address label and stamp on the front page of the flyer) and they each get 3-4 "useless" letters per week. I've tried the "return to sender" and emailed the property agent asking if they can remind past tenants to update their addresses via email.

I've lived here for almost 4 years, so I'm at the point where everything goes into the recycling bin despite that being illegal, the post office was just as sick as I was, showing up once a week for 2 years straight with 20 undeliverable rain damaged letters that they themselves just immediately destroyed.

I always forget to check the mailbox because I'm not expecting any mail. Nothing in the box is ever for me, even when I got a new bank card delivered they hold it at the post office for me because that's how I've got my mail set up. I get a text when I have mail to pick up. (and I'll bring the stack of junk mail in my mailbox that aren't for me to the post office when I go to get my mail, but if I don't have a reason to go to the post office, sorry previous tenants, I'm sick of the 7 ALDI catalogues every week, they're going in the shredder, and I'm willing to risk jail over it)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

You can actually! You have to pay like $3 to unsubscribe from junk mail (ridiculous, right?), but you can! You have to unsubscribe from pre-screened credit cards separately. I did both a couple years ago and reclaimed my mailbox.

For junk mail:

https://dmachoice.org/

For CC bullshit:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/now-leaving?external_url=http%3A%2F%2Foptoutprescreen.com&back_url=https%3A%2F%2Fconsumer.ftc.gov%2Farticles%2Fhow-stop-junk-mail

An article from the government about both:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wow that's awesome!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I know I'm going to sound like a bit of a dick, but where I am I just put a little sticker that says "no junk mail" on my letter box and then the junk mail stops. That's more awesome imo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah I'm super confused that they have to pay to opt out. You in Australia? I also have the little sticker. Honour system at work maybe?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I unsubscribed from the junk mail I was getting just to realize that my mailman just puts the same junk into every box in my neighborhood without looking at the address, so I still get my neighbor's junk mail lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I definitely don't get any more. Maybe you can complain about your mail carrier.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Landfill filler as a subscription is one of the late stage capitalism business ideas I hate most.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

That's just called a mystery box

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

To be honest it seems like a fad from 3-4 years ago and now most of them have gone out of business.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I dunno... imagine the material is coming from stuff that is one step away from the landfill. Then what we're doing is delaying the material from going straight into the landfill, and we're giving it another chance of being useful. It's the "reuse" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Since people are actually paying for it, they have more of a motivation to find a use for it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

So then just make stuff that people want or need? Why turn it into a subscription-based "send me stuff" thing?

Before "reduce, reuse, recycle" there is "plan".

Subscription stuff boxes, the ones that make hand over fist, are the ones that count on customers forgetting they are subbed, the same as digital subscriptions.

Except now the consequence is actual physical stuff showing up at your door without you having "planned" for it. Which will likely just end up... Existing without a point now. Which is the opposite of "reduce". The three Rs go in order of importance. Recycle is the last for a reason, because it's the least effective but better than nothing.

If you want to sell a thing, just sell a thing. None of this subscription bs, which is really just a way to vacuum up money from people being inefficient with their resources.

Spending the energy to recycle something if you're not gonna "re-" use it, is worse than sending it straight to the landfill in the first place. By delaying it ending up there you've just made its "carbon footprint" bigger for no reason.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's already made but people didn't buy it so now they stuff it in a mystery box to try and sell it cheaper

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

...

Just sell it cheaper? Stuffing it in a mystery box to ship it all over is just kicking it down the road, but with a ton of shipping costs and carbon emissions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The first step is to try to sell it cheaper but when no one buys it they can toss it in a mystery box or toss it in the landfill.

For example Bethesda keeps sending me these discount emails to but their game merch. Now they are doing mystery boxes. For the cost of a shirt you can get a random shirt and two random items from their franchises. They are basically writing off that stuff without it going straight to the dump

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

That's not a subscription-based "send me stuff" service.

That's a "buy a mystery box to get random merch" product, which I agree, is a decent way to get rid of unsold stock.

It's when you make people subscribe to turn it into recurring landfill churn that exploits people's tendencies to forget to unsub when they lose interest in something that's a problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

You had me until all that utterly stupid tripe about something not sitting in a landfill having an increasing carbon footprint... That is ... just SO fucking dumb.

A knickknack sitting on someones' shelf is ABSOLUTELY NOT "increasing its carbon footprint". The thing has already been created. The carbon footprint has long since been established, and it's BETTER to rot on a shelf as a knickknack than literally rotting in a landfill.

This is not a defense of the horrible practices of creating all the junk in the first place, just pushing back against the moronic hate on recycling.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

The point they are making is if it ends up in a landfill anyway, then you've wasted more energy/resources recycling it.

If it stays on your shelf, that's not what they're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's in quotes because the "carbon footprint" is a bs metric to begin with.

The point is that spending energy on something that won't be used to do something useful, is spending energy on nothing, and therefore a waste of energy.

It would have been better to send the material into a landfill sooner, because delaying it just cost more resources for no benefit.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago

Hey if Temu can do this, I can!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit! Is that a paperclip and a small orange ball?!?

Of course those would go out the month after I cancel! πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Dammit! I knew I should have signed up with the free trial offer I got last week :(

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

The Lorax said, Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth who would buy that fool Thneed! But the very next minute I proved he was wrong. For, just at that minute, a chap came along, and he thought that the Thneed I had knitted was great. He happily bought it for three ninety-eight.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Running your business necessitates not giving much weight to familiar voices

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Must be a magical drawer to supply all those customers with random junk each month.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Or he just has a LOT of junk accumulated.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I could float 400 monthly customers for awhile.

If a marble/ball, two batteries, a screwdriver, roll of tape, tooth picks, and a post-it note count as a box, I would happily get rid of some of the random junk I've accumulated over the years.

Heck, if they want to pay a premium on shipping, I'll include large items, and even kick in a few pieces of bonus ~~trash~~ items.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

He said a "few" items, so that would be more than enough for one shipment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Jesus, some people are that much of a hoarder that there's a market to sell your garbage to them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think there are people out there who would sign up for just about any subscription you offered them purely out of FOMO.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

If you send me $5 per month I'll make sure to add you to my "do not mail" list. Don't miss out! Send money today!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

πŸ˜€