[tetrep]

If you could reject junk mail, junk mail senders wouldn't pay to, well, send it. And the USPS would lose a lot of money.

Imagine how terrible GMail's spam filters would be if spammers paid Google for delivery... Oh wait, Google literally has a dedicated tab for that! For those that find it useful (and I don't doubt it is), imagine what the alternative would be for the spammers, you'd be 100% ignoring it by unsubscribing or filtering it as spam. Now that it's corralled off, you can look at it at your leisure, and Google can keep advertisers happy by offering them a non-zero chance you'll look at their spam.

[viraptor]

But promotions is something completely different from spam. Almost every single email you get there, you subscribed to or didn't opt-out of. And if you don't have an unsubscribe linkk in those emails, you can still create a manual filter to auto-delete them. And those senders don't pay Google to end up in promotions anyway.

[PascLeRasc]

Not to mention emails don't require killing trees and burning fossil fuels to get there.

[jlgaddis]

Energy is still required to transmit those (e-mail) bits.

[r00fus]

How about I get first right of refusal to outbid the spammer?

I mean, ok so USPS is getting $5/mo for my address from a dozen companies. Can I just pay them that $5? Not today.

I'd be happy to open the discussion on opting out of the junk mail without going to a costly service like earth-class mail.

[komali2]

It does seem really weird that somehow a business relationship between spam companies and the United States postal service means that I have to be responsible for recycling a bunch of garbage.

Once it's in my mailbox, what can I do, drop it on the ground? That's littering and a crime. Leave it in my mailbox? I tried that and the mailman eventually stuck a Post-It note on my box saying I wasn't allowed to do that.

So I'm in some sort of weird uncontracted relationship wherein I must ferry a bunch of paper from my box to the recycling bin.

[craftyguy]

> Leave it in my mailbox?

I tried this with a twist, I wrote "return to sender" on it. Mail(wo)man also said "you cannot do this."

[DoofusOfDeath]

Have you tried marking the spam "return to sender" and dropping it in a public poastal box?

[craftyguy]

I did, postal worker said "you cannot do this."

I'm curious if there's a list of things like this that the USPS explicitly does not allow..

[dingaling]

I have a couple of strategies:

1. Open the envelope and look for a pre-franked reply envelope. If there is one, stuff the junk into that and post it. Extra revenue for the postal service.

2. If it is a really persistent and annoying sender, mutilate my address and post it. This should result in it being routed back to the sender but does impose extra work on the postal service.

[craftyguy]

Oh yes, I've done #1 before. My favorite is to stuff a credit card A offer return envelope with the crap from a credit card B offer, and vice versa. Sometimes if they really piss me off, I'll throw in a few heavy things (rocks, etc) so they pay extra. A small ziplock bag full of sand fits very nicely, and weighs (relatively) a lot. I've yet to try taping a return envelope to a large box, but it seems like the postal service would accept it and charge them accordingly, right?

[UncleEntity]

> Leave it in my mailbox?

I used to do that until the mailman decided I didn't live here anymore...twice.

Now I apparently don't have a mailing address though the only bill I could never successfully get converted to all electronic (not from lack of trying) is the power company which messes them up every so often getting their bills returned every month.

[koboll]

It does seem like there is a procedure to refuse mail- http://refuseyourmail.cooperjr.name/how-to

[ensignavenger]

I don't think there is any law requiring you to have a mailbox, if you don't want to receive mail?

[spacehome]

Check out Traveling Mailbox. Same basic idea as Earth-class mail, but cheaper and targeted more towards individuals rather than businesses. I'm not affiliated, but a satisfied customer.

[msandford]

What's the biggest missing feature or "complaint" you have? I'm doing some research.

[spacehome]

On the whole, the service is brilliant, and exactly what USPS should have become in the mid-90s. Mail is auto-scanned and delivered as a pdf attachment to my email. When I need something physically forwarded to me, the prices are only a small markup from what it costs to mail the package, and it's mailed promptly. On the whole, it's awesome, and I'm very happy to be a customer.

I'll give you my two big complaints:

1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is.

2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.

[spacehome]

I almost forgot the best part of it: I don't receive any mass mailings. Couple that with opting out of unsolicited mailings and calling all my banks and opting out of their "special offers", I get almost no unwanted mail.

[msandford]

Thanks! Super helpful.

[kull]

I need an address for creating LLC in TX. Will that work?

[perl4ever]

I wish that for a variety of online activities, I could set a maximum bandwidth available for ads and have advertisers bid for it, to keep my system running fast. And in turn, Google (or others) could price its services based on how much bandwidth users put out for bid.

Edit: It should be obvious that you could do this with physical mail too.

[icebraining]

Why would anyone set more than the minimum?

[perl4ever]

In order to maintain access to (currently) free services without making one's computer unusable.

The problem I see is that the processing and bandwidth used by advertising are currently "as much as advertisers can get away with" and I think it's leading to a tragedy of the commons.

But I see no need to eliminate ads and free services either. There just needs to be a cap enforced on the resources used.

[lostlogin]

One day you’ll have the misfortune of seeing someones email inbox or browser set up (more toolbars? Yes please!) and the pain is going to be real.

[icebraining]

I've seen plenty of computers with a bunch of toolbars as I helped clean them up for friends and family, but they were never purposefully installed.

[lostlogin]

Less easy to explain are the countless advertising emails.