It's good to know that our government is saving the country from both efficiency and progress.

The USPS used to have a self service packaging and mailing station in every post office. The customer could weigh their package, pay the shipping fee, print out and attach a label, and that was it. No hassle of waiting in line.

For some reason (mainly congressional influence from the postal workers union), all the self serve stations were removed and now every post office is run like the 1960s.

Also a prime example why communism failed due to opposition to efficiency and progress.

 

why don't they just install it on a ship anchored offshore instead of a submerged capsule?

Which one of them would be more high maintenance?

 

There is probably cables and power involved. Fiber optic for data, and what not.

 

Based on the practice of the offshore oil industry, anything that is submerged will be more costly to maintain than a floating structure.

The Transbay Tube for the BART transit system is buried under the floor of San Francisco Bay and it is more expensive to operate than a bridge. Electrolytic corrosion protection also requires continuous DC power and requires several megawatts for the 8 mile tube. However, it was built under the floor because of a new bridge would conflict with an existing bridge.

 

why don't they just pipe sea water to an on shore installation?

Not dramatic enough for marketing purposes,

I do think at some point those environmental zealots will start to tax thermal pollution as well.

 

I can't see an offshore data centre being a tax haven. Wouldn't your government simply tax the import/export of data to/from the centre?

 

They surely could.

 

I doubt it. Congress has just passed a law baring states and other government entities from taxing having internet. I can't believe it, so now I wait for the other shoe to drop.

 

The USPS used to have a self service packaging and mailing station in every post office. The customer could weigh their package, pay the shipping fee, print out and attach a label, and that was it. No hassle of waiting in line.

A post office near here -- well, actually Boulder -- once had a trash can next to the PO boxes. Then it was deemed politcally incorrect to allow post office customers to leave the building without their junk mail and the trash can was removed.

 

A post office near here -- well, actually Boulder -- once had a trash can next to the PO boxes. Then it was deemed politcally incorrect to allow post office customers to leave the building without their junk mail and the trash can was removed.

In the community where I live we have a mail house and it used to have a trash can, but it was removed, too. Albeit for different reasons. It would fill up so fast and be overflowing that it was deemed an eyesore (or worse) by the HOA and removed.

 

A post office near here -- well, actually Boulder -- once had a trash can next to the PO boxes. Then it was deemed politcally incorrect to allow post office customers to leave the building without their junk mail and the trash can was removed.

I suspect the trashed junk mail would be an obvious indicator that the whole concept of junk mail marketing is a failure.

In my condo building, there is also a trash bin next to the mail boxes and I notice that literally every piece of junk mail does wind up in the trash.

 

I can't see an offshore data centre being a tax haven. Wouldn't your government simply tax the import/export of data to/from the centre?

I'm not sure how data flow could be taxed.

Data is a means of communication and not a commodity like gas or groceries. The government already taxes phone and internet service, but the actual data flow itself is not a physical entity that can be regulated. It would be like trying to tax phone calls by the word.

 

I suspect the trashed junk mail would be an obvious indicator that the whole concept of junk mail marketing is a failure.

But it is NOT a failure. It is a low-cost form of mass marketing that simply does not need a high response rate to yield a high rate of return. Just a quick search shows that it is easy to get per-piece rates for bulk mail down to $0.20 each (and postcards that meet certain requirements can be as low as $0.003 each). Using the 20-cent level, that means that you can send out 10,000 pieces for $2,000. If you have a 1% response rate that's 100 customers who only need to spend an average of $20 (over your costs) in order to cover your postage costs (of course there are other costs that have to be covered). If the item you are advertising is a high-ticket item, such as roofing, then the added profit from just a 0.1% response rate could easily cover the advertising costs.

If you go with the cheap post card option then 100,000 pieces would cost you $300 and if your response rate was only 0.1% then each of the only needs to purchase enough to provide a profit of $3 each to cover your costs.

In my condo building, there is also a trash bin next to the mail boxes and I notice that literally every piece of junk mail does wind up in the trash.

How can you possibly know that "literally every piece" winds up there? Do you count it? How are you so sure that not one single person does not throw it in that trash bin? Seems pretty amazing that not one single person ever just takes all of their mail home, even if they then throw it into their home trash can.

 

But it is NOT a failure. It is a low-cost form of mass marketing that simply does not need a high response rate to yield a high rate of return. Just a quick search shows that it is easy to get per-piece rates for bulk mail down to $0.20 each (and postcards that meet certain requirements can be as low as $0.003 each). Using the 20-cent level, that means that you can send out 10,000 pieces for $2,000. If you have a 1% response rate that's 100 customers who only need to spend an average of $20 (over your costs) in order to cover your postage costs (of course there are other costs that have to be covered). If the item you are advertising is a high-ticket item, such as roofing, then the added profit from just a 0.1% response rate could easily cover the advertising costs.

If you go with the cheap post card option then 100,000 pieces would cost you $300 and if your response rate was only 0.1% then each of the only needs to purchase enough to provide a profit of $3 each to cover your costs.



How can you possibly know that "literally every piece" winds up there? Do you count it? How are you so sure that not one single person does not throw it in that trash bin? Seems pretty amazing that not one single person ever just takes all of their mail home, even if they then throw it into their home trash can.

What is the feedback mechanism that determines if a given form of advertising (such as junk mail) is really working? It would have to be a trail and error method like what is used in scientific work. Send only junk mail and check for the sales rate. Then send another form of ad (instead of junk mail) and check for a change in sales. Finally, check for a correlation between the type of advertising media and an increase or decrease in sales.

And yes, I do check the wastebasket under the mail boxes (in this 12 unit condo building) and literally every piece does wind up there. Sometimes, the mail person will just set the stack of junk mail on another table with a rubber band around it. It sets there for a week undisturbed.
There is a site to cancel junk mail delivery and if everyone that doesn't want it actually sent a stop notice, the ad industry would go belly up.

 

What is the feedback mechanism that determines if a given form of advertising (such as junk mail) is really working? It would have to be a trail and error method like what is used in scientific work. Send only junk mail and check for the sales rate. Then send another form of ad (instead of junk mail) and check for a change in sales. Finally, check for a correlation between the type of advertising media and an increase or decrease in sales.

And yes, I do check the wastebasket under the mail boxes (in this 12 unit condo building) and literally every piece does wind up there. Sometimes, the mail person will just set the stack of junk mail on another table with a rubber band around it. It sets there for a week undisturbed.
There is a site to cancel junk mail delivery and if everyone that doesn't want it actually sent a stop notice, the ad industry would go belly up.

And lots of large companies have done the kind of tests you describe -- they try different methods in different areas and track results, often rotating methods to look for shifts in the results that correlate with the moves. Even very small companies make efforts to determine how their customers came to know about them and give them a try.

For an example, consider all of those "pre-approved" offers you receive for credit cards and other things -- don't you think that the companies that send those out track how many of those come back?

And if the ad industry did go belly up, your postal rates would increase significantly to cover the short fall. A first class stamp would likely cost something in the range of $1, give or take.

I am still very skeptical about your claim that literally every piece of junk mail is thrown away by the residents in that particular wastebasket. Are you really claiming that no one, ever, just grabs their mail out of their box and leaves? That they always, always stop to throw every piece of their junk mail away in that specific waste basket? And that you always check to see that every single resident has thrown away every single piece of junk mail every single day? (And why are you doing this? Seems kinda creepy.)

What if just one person in your complex took your advice and canceled junk mail delivery? How would you know? How would you be able to tell that the junk mail that is no longer being thrown away in that waste basket was because they canceled the deliver versus them just keeping the junk mail? And apparently not one single one of your neighbors has taken your advise.

Also, a sample size of twelve households in one complex is way too small to tell anything about a large-scale, rare-event problem like this.

 

I get my mail in a street side box, and while walking back up the hill to the house, I separate out the junk mail and toss most of it (unopened) into a trash (not garbage) can in the garage. Lots of days it all goes in the can unopened.

And to go one more step further off topic...

The ones that really get my goat are the weekly advertising papers that are thrown out in the driveway. I don't know why they don't fall under the litter laws, and I daydream about collecting them from the neighbors, saving them for a while, shredding them, and then dumping the whole mess on the front lawn of the publisher.

 

For a while I was taking any junk mail I got that had Post-paid return envelopes and stuffing as much of their garbage into the envelope and sending it back to them since they only have to actually pay postage on the return envelopes that get used. Maybe I'll sic by daughter on them as a make-work project for her once she gets back.

 

On the subject of advertising, billboards are the biggest form of blight and at the top of my list of pet gripes.

Clear Channel, Gannet, and CBS are the major offenders and there a few other companies who put ads on transit agency buses and in train stations.

However here in San Francisco, I notice that practically all the billboards and ad posters in train stations are constantly displaying advertising for some form of government agency, but very, very few have ads for a private business. I suspect that private businesses consider billboards as an obsolete advertising medium and they would be gone without government subsidies.

So there you have it: The government subsidizing one of the biggest forms of blight on the landscape.

 

I buy some stuff from junk mail. Mostly from the sporting good store that I go to. I open most of them because they often send coupons for things like golf balls. Evidently they can still make enough money on them (and the other stuff I buy when there) to give me $5 off and mail me some stuff. There is such a thing as good junk - I have a garage full.
The post office amazes me. I think it's a bargain. I can put a fet FETs in an envelope and mail them to @WBahn for almost nothing. I once mailed a little TV transmitter to a friend in Pakistan for $4.39.

 

I've received good junk mail from companies that I've purchased stuff from.

For example, Grainger's Inc. (that huge industrial supply company) just mailed me 3000 page, 5 Lb. catalog and I love reading through it.

However, most of the time, I just get annoying junk mail for home pizza delivery, laundry, house cleaning, cloth diaper pick up and delivery, and a host of other nauseating stuff.