[philwelch]

It's significantly less reliable, more expensive, and of extremely limited benefit to ship things to relatively unpopulated states in the middle of the ocean, or across two international borders into the Arctic. People are of course free to live in those places, but they're not free to demand the rest of the world to accommodate their decision.

[jdabney]

I would completely agree if companies had to setup their own shipping infrastructures to ship to these places; but they don't. Companies like FedEx, UPS, etc, already do this for you and they already ship to places like Alaska and Hawaii. Just charge the customer the extra shipping they are charged by the shipper and let it be at that.

[pbiggar]

Alternatively, make it illegal to only offer shipping to the lower 48, so that the fringe states don't end up in the third world.

This (I believe) is what the UK does with Northern Ireland.