The Father of Spam

Nope, I’m not going to talk about some unfortunate hog :) I’m referring to the postal service. After three weeks of being away, it took me almost an hour to sort through and shred the junk mail that accumulated in my postal box. You know why we receive so much junk mail? It’s because the US Postal Service is running a monopoly. A monopoly so extensive they even own your own postal box such that it is a federal offense to put a party invitation in your neighbor’s postal box, that’s right, they control what gets into your mailbox. They make money by encouraging firms to send you junk mail and they are happy to deliver it. Remember the do not mail initiative? Yeah, that idea went very far. If it is so irritating to get unwanted phone calls why not unwanted mail?

How to solve this? We have to take ownership of our mailbox. Think of your email box, you can put measures to prevent junk mail, that’s because you exercise rights over it. Imagine if FedEx and UPS start leaving junk parcels and packages on your front porch. They will be in a world of lawsuits. It’s because you own your porch. If we own our mailboxes we can dictate what goes into it. We can sell space in it. Want to send me junk mail? You pay.