Market Disruptor - sh.itjust.works

Landfill filler as a subscription is one of the late stage capitalism business ideas I hate most.
I dunno… imagine the material is coming from stuff that is one step away from the landfill. Then what we’re doing is delaying the material from going straight into the landfill, and we’re giving it another chance of being useful. It’s the ā€œreuseā€ part of ā€œreduce, reuse, recycle.ā€ Since people are actually paying for it, they have more of a motivation to find a use for it.

Before ā€œreduce, reuse, recycleā€ there is ā€œplanā€.

Subscription stuff boxes, the ones that make hand over fist, are the ones that count on customers forgetting they are subbed, the same as digital subscriptions.

Except now the consequence is stiff showing up at your door without you having ā€œplannedā€ for it. Which is the opposite of ā€œreduceā€.

You had me until all that utterly stupid tripe about something not sitting in a landfill having an increasing carbon footprint… That is … just SO fucking dumb.

A knickknack sitting on someones’ shelf is ABSOLUTELY NOT ā€œincreasing its carbon footprintā€. The thing has already been created. The carbon footprint has long since been established, and it’s BETTER to rot on a shelf as a knickknack than literally rotting in a landfill.

This is not a defense of the horrible practices of creating all the junk in the first place, just pushing back against the moronic hate on recycling.

The point they are making is if it ends up in a landfill anyway, then you've wasted more energy/resources recycling it.

If it stays on your shelf, that's not what they're talking about.

It’s in quotes because the ā€œcarbon footprintā€ is a bs metric to begin with, but the point is that spending energy on something that won’t be used to do something useful, is spending energy on nothing, and therefore a waste of energy.

It would have been better to send the material into a landfill sooner, because delaying it just cost more resources for no benefit.

There were no savings.

It’s already made but people didn’t buy it so now they stuff it in a mystery box to try and sell it cheaper

…

Just sell it cheaper? Stuffing it in a mystery box to ship it all over is just kicking it down the road, but with a ton of shipping costs and carbon emissions.

The first step is to try to sell it cheaper but when no one buys it they can toss it in a mystery box or toss it in the landfill.

For example Bethesda keeps sending me these discount emails to but their game merch. Now they are doing mystery boxes. For the cost of a shirt you can get a random shirt and two random items from their franchises. They are basically writing off that stuff without it going straight to the dump

That’s not a subscription-based ā€œsend me stuffā€ service.

That’s a ā€œbuy a mystery box to get random merchā€ product, which I agree, is a decent way to get rid of unsold stock.

It’s when you make people subscribe and turn into recurring landfill churn to start exploiting people’s tendencies to forget to unsub when they lose interest in something that’s a problem.

That’s just called a mystery box
To be honest it seems like a fad from 3-4 years ago and now most of them have gone out of business.

I ran into my mail lady when I was getting my mail the other day. Turns out she had just tossed everything a few days before and started lecturing me on not letting my mailbox fill up.

I went there to get a new card that Id been informed was sent a few days ago and asked her how it got so full.

Then I saw all the junk mail she was shoving in and , not thinking, asked her if I could unsubscribe from all the obvious crap because mail is almost useless these days. She got a sad look on her face and I almost felt bad

Flyers are a big part of our salary. We lose money every time someone asks to be put on the list. I don't know how often you check your box, but some people on my route don't check for months. I don't give those people flyers once it fills up. But if you're still getting mail and we have to clear out the flyers to make room, we do tend to get little annoyed.

She should have simply asked if you like flyers
You can not like flyers but still get flyers since you didn't ask to be put on the list. We usually know which ones don't like our don't care about flyers. If you leave a note taped to the bottom of your box at the front so that we see our while we're working, we'll usually not give you flyers while also forgetting to report it when we get back to the office. There are lots of options that let us bend the rules. We'll work with you if you give us a chance.

Addressed ad mail is a different story. We legally have to deliver everything as addressed, even junk mail. Those you have to fight with whoever is sending you that crap.

Hang on, why are you penalized if mail customers don’t want flyers?
USPS makes money from postage. Flyers require paid postage. If you indicate you don’t want to receive offers or flyers, that’s less money for the USPS.
And usps sees fit to pass those losses on to postmen?
I don’t believe it is passed directly to them. Though I could be wrong.
Well Rs decided it needed to be run as a business but also ā€œfuture proofā€ itself (unlike a business) by preparing money now for all future postmen as well. Conservatives also prevented usps from making a secure certified email service. Of course we also still have dejoy the dismantler at the helm.

Mail volume is checked once a year for rebalancing mailboxes on routes among an office’s employees. The volume on a route during mail count also affects direct pay, even though it varies throughout the year. So yes, less spam mail does impact the post person, though it’d have to be on a much larger scale to be significant and occur during mail count season (spring time iirc).

Source: parent is a rural post person

If it makes you feel better I love junk flyers because it’s free bird cage liners for me. And the nicer quality the paper the easier it is to clean up after my birds. I’ve actually had friends save their junk mail for me.
Good to know I am not the only one who does not check my mail for months

Addressed marketing is the reason my letterbox gets so full.

The previous 7 tenants of my unit haven’t updated their address (why would they? It’s just catalogues, newsletters and flyers, they’re not even enveloped, they just have an address label and stamp on the front page of the flyer) and they each get 3-4 ā€œuselessā€ letters per week. I’ve tried the ā€œreturn to senderā€ and emailed the property agent asking if they can remind past tenants to update their addresses via email.

I’ve lived here for almost 4 years, so I’m at the point where everything goes into the recycling bin despite that being illegal, the post office was just as sick as I was, showing up once a week for 2 years straight with 20 undeliverable rain damaged letters that they themselves just immediately destroyed.

I always forget to check the mailbox because I’m not expecting any mail. Nothing in the box is ever for me, even when I got a new bank card delivered they hold it at the post office for me because that’s how I’ve got my mail set up. I get a text when I have mail to pick up. (and I’ll bring the stack of junk mail in my mailbox that aren’t for me to the post office when I go to get my mail, but if I don’t have a reason to go to the post office, sorry previous tenants, I’m sick of the 7 ALDI catalogues every week, they’re going in the shredder, and I’m willing to risk jail over it)

Damn. I’m in the same boat and was hoping this story had a happy resolution.

You can actually! You have to pay like $3 to unsubscribe from junk mail (ridiculous, right?), but you can! You have to unsubscribe from pre-screened credit cards separately. I did both a couple years ago and reclaimed my mailbox.

For junk mail:

dmachoice.org

For CC bullshit:

consumer.ftc.gov/now-leaving?external_url=http%3A…

An article from the government about both:

consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail

DMAchoice is a mail preference service offered by the ANA.

DMAChoice is the only reasonable way to get rid of Junk Mail. The US post office (USPS) is no help when it comes to stopping unwanted mail. Register now to stop junk mail and emails, as well as registering the deceased and caretakers.

Wow that’s awesome!
I know I’m going to sound like a bit of a dick, but where I am I just put a little sticker that says ā€œno junk mailā€ on my letter box and then the junk mail stops. That’s more awesome imo
Yeah I’m super confused that they have to pay to opt out. You in Australia! I also have the little sticker. Honour system at work maybe?
I unsubscribed from the junk mail I was getting just to realize that my mailman just puts the same junk into every box in my neighborhood without looking at the address, so I still get my neighbor’s junk mail lol
I definitely don’t get any more. Maybe you can complain about your mail carrier.
Just checked DMA Choice to confirm that I already paid to unsubscribe from junk mail like 3 years ago. Still get piles of unavoidable mailers every week. I asked my post office about it and they told me any mail that is addressed ā€œCurrent Residentā€ or the like instead of my name legally has to get delivered. So yeah, it’s fucking useless.
I think there are people out there who would sign up for just about any subscription you offered them purely out of FOMO.
If you send me $5 per month I’ll make sure to add you to my ā€œdo not mailā€ list. Don’t miss out! Send money today!

Oh shit! Is that a paperclip and a small orange ball?!?

Of course those would go out the month after I cancel! šŸ¤¦šŸ»ā€ā™‚ļø

Dammit! I knew I should have signed up with the free trial offer I got last week :(
Must be a magical drawer to supply all those customers with random junk each month.
Or he just has a LOT of junk accumulated.

Honestly I could float 400 monthly customers for awhile.

If a marble/ball, two batteries, a screwdriver, roll of tape, tooth picks, and a post-it note count as a box, I would happily get rid of some of the random junk I’ve accumulated over the years.

Heck, if they want to pay a premium on shipping, I’ll include large items, and even kick in a few pieces of bonus trash items.

He said a ā€œfewā€ items, so that would be more than enough for one shipment.
Hey if Temu can do this, I can!

The Lorax said, Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth who would buy that fool Thneed! But the very next minute I proved he was wrong. For, just at that minute, a chap came along, and he thought that the Thneed I had knitted was great. He happily bought it for three ninety-eight.

Running your business necessitates not giving much weight to familiar voices
Jesus, some people are that much of a hoarder that there’s a market to sell your garbage to them.