I think this exists in one form or another. ISTR that the USPS can (or tried to) do this in some capacity, and maybe Japan Post does it too. What I do know exists is a line of printers that you can buy that prints out your e-mail messages. There are ads on the radio that basically talk about how these printers finally let you send mails to Grandpa, who hates the technology.
There is still something about getting a letter in the mail. Something makes it seem more real. This might be different if people lived on the Internet -- but there's still a clear division between "the world online" and "the Real World".
That said, I think a first step to thinking about this more would be to look at all the mail that is sent each day and start to categorize it.
Personal Letters is the category I just mentioned. Maybe that can abstracted to "most personal exchange". Just going off my own experience -- there are also lots of bills, and lots of advertisement in various forms. (What else?) Stuff like that can be sent across the Internet and reprinted without really losing anything desirable.
I suppose for those types of things, the Postal Service (or whatever) could ask American Express or the people who send out envelopes full of coupons or whoever to instead submit some kind of computer file which they can print at their local branch. The incentive for both would be that they'd save money on printing.
Your idea suggests taking the Postal Service out of it entirely. Although (and maybe I'm being short-sighted), one problem there is that just allowing anyone to send someone something by physical address would lead to them getting a deluge of spam. Having to go through the trouble of sending through the mail is a good filter for that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krja![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 12:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 12:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 12:40 am (UTC)http://www.postful.com/
http://www.earthclassmail.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 04:56 am (UTC)That said, I think a first step to thinking about this more would be to look at all the mail that is sent each day and start to categorize it.
Personal Letters is the category I just mentioned. Maybe that can abstracted to "most personal exchange". Just going off my own experience -- there are also lots of bills, and lots of advertisement in various forms. (What else?) Stuff like that can be sent across the Internet and reprinted without really losing anything desirable.
I suppose for those types of things, the Postal Service (or whatever) could ask American Express or the people who send out envelopes full of coupons or whoever to instead submit some kind of computer file which they can print at their local branch. The incentive for both would be that they'd save money on printing.
Your idea suggests taking the Postal Service out of it entirely. Although (and maybe I'm being short-sighted), one problem there is that just allowing anyone to send someone something by physical address would lead to them getting a deluge of spam. Having to go through the trouble of sending through the mail is a good filter for that.