What decision or choices do you make based on that new data stream? What is the advantage, because I really don’t get the idea.
Edit: I see below; that theft awareness and not having to go check the mailbox are the features... ok, I guess. I have trouble believing that this applies to so many people they need to support a public facing service for it.
My parents live in a small subdivision in the country. they don't always walk to the end of their long driveway to check their mail. they do every few days. (or when they take the trash down, etc) They have had a rash of people going through mailboxes, looking for money, checks, and CC applications. twice now, the ONLY reason my parents found out their mail was stolen was a neighbor found a bunch of ripped open envelopes in a ditch down the road, with my parents (and many of their neighbors) mail in it. It may have happened more often, but they can't report stolen mail to the postmaster general if they don't know it was stolen.
Having the ability to see what mail is coming will allow them to see if there are 'important' things coming, so they can either go get the mail that day, or know if its missing.
It matters more when you don't have a personal mailbox at your residence and instead have to go to a shared mailbox center for your street / apartment complex.
Also many people have P.O. boxes at a separate mail center location where going to check your mail means actually getting in a car and driving across town.
Where I live there is no home delivery of mail, so all my mail goes to a PO box, so this is a huge boon to me. The only problem is international mail doesn't show up in the system, so when I'm getting a package from Japan, New Zealand, or elsewhere, I get no notification, and have to revert to the tracking number.
Whether I check or ignore the mail on that day. If I could pay the postal service to have a virtual address for me where all mail was opened and scanned, they'd have my business for life (I have to settle with a commercial provider for this service). I'm hopeful this product is a step in that direction.
The government can already open your non-first class mail without a warrant, and if its first class mail, I'm not convinced it'll be hard to get a warrant.
The problem with commercial mail processors is that you can't forward mail out from them like you can with a PO box or other traditional address. So if you get an address from one of them, and then either change providers or they go out of business, you're SOL. That address is now a blackhole for your mail. Hence, why I want the USPS to sanction and operate the service.
>The government can already open your non-first class mail without a warrant, and if its first class mail, I'm not convinced it'll be hard to get a warrant.
But IIRC first class mail travels rather quickly. Now you need a warrant for the apartment/house because it was delivered before a warrant could be written. Much harder to get.
We could argue this all day. Let's not! I'm okay parting with some privacy and security for convenience to avoid losing paper mail, have it returned undeliverable, ease my management of receiving it, etc. It's not for everyone, but for my use cases, I desire it. Provide the service, and I'll be a customer for life.
It only takes one lost paper bill or notice to make life painful for a bit.
It's paperless for you, and you only. The paper was still printed, mailed, etc and is therefore still used. This is not a paperless transaction. You want to go paperless, then by all means do that with the actual people sending you things. Once you sign up to go paperless with the place you legitimately need information from, the only thing left is unsolicited mail along with the occasional card/invitation/etc. According to previous HN discussions on cards/invitations, the younger generation doesn't even want those. Those should come from a FB Event notice or similar. So, in that vein, you never need to be concerned about anything coming through the mail. It would all be unsolicited at that point. Oops, then there's jury summons...
> It's paperless for you, and you only. The paper was still printed, mailed, etc and is therefore still used. This is not a paperless transaction. You want to go paperless, then by all means do that with the actual people sending you things.
> Oops, then there's jury summons...
Some senders will still only send paper. That is part of what this type of service addresses. I have received grand jury summons via my commercial mail provider turning it into a PDF. Working as intended! No different than a fax to email gateway for senders who can only fax you something (speaking of which, I also get a fax number with the service for inbound faxes dropped in the same interface as scanned mail).
> According to previous HN discussions on cards/invitations, the younger generation doesn't even want those. Those should come from a FB Event notice or similar.
I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Meetup, or other online invite or social services. I still get wedding invites and other personal cards in the mail, from people in their 20s. I receive postcards from friends traveling the world. I receive hand written letters from my grandmother. A friend sends me a favorite candy bar in the mail for my birthday. My commercial mail provider scans the envelope, and then I hit "Forward" (which queues the mail pieces for forwarding), and receive them at my physical location for actioning and sentimental safekeeping.
> Once you sign up to go paperless with the place you legitimately need information from, the only thing left is unsolicited mail along with the occasional card/invitation/etc.
My insurance company still sends policy docs by mail, which I can't opt out of. All of my rental properties still require paper receipt of government correspondence. My health insurance provider. My kid's day care provider. Many, many orgs still send paper mail and won't send an electronic doc instead.
You're waving away valid use cases that will still exist for decades. Not everyone is a tech professional who only needs an email address and a number for SMS.
As long as the service is opt in, I don't have an issue. My problem is eroding constitutional protections for people who don't want to trade liberty for convenience.
I have to imagine that at some level this is just a step on a long path of modernization, and we are reaping the benefits with a little bit of convenience. As their technology improves, they will probably start offering some kind of virtualization like virtualpostmail. I've long wondered why the USPS hasn't yet leveraged their unique position in the mail system to do something like this. Certified electronic mail, etc.
Yeah I did this the other day when I was looking for a letter I thought I had given my SO, but apparently didn't. It was pretty helpful to go thru which day certain letters arrived so I could look thru all the potential places I put it.
