[HN Gopher] Postal Arbitrage
___________________________________________________________________
Postal Arbitrage
Author : The28thDuck
Score : 533 points
Date : 2026-01-12 17:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (walzr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (walzr.com)
| ekropotin wrote:
| But the cost of Amazon Prime have to be factored in as well
| happyopossum wrote:
| No, for anyone considering doing this it does not have to be
| factored in as it's a sunk cost.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Only if you weren't already paying for Prime. If you were, then
| it's irrelevant as this usage adds no marginal cost.
| moralestapia wrote:
| "If you already pay for shipping then shipping adds no
| marginal cost."
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| well, yeah. That's what the phrase "marginal cost" means:
| if it costs $x to do something N times, and $x + $y to do
| something N+1 times, $y is the marginal cost.
| babelfish wrote:
| Riley Walz is easily one of the most creative people in tech
| today.
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| Yes, Jmail.world and the entire Jmail suite is mind-blowingly
| impressive, apparently Walz and @lukeigel co-created it.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| I believe it. There are a few more interesting projects at the
| site.
|
| This is fun, https://walzr.com/weather-watching
| languagehacker wrote:
| Isn't postal arbitrage how the original Ponzi scheme started?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Indeed. Ponzi attempted to buy International Reply Coupons in
| countries where they were cheap, then exchange them for stamps
| in the US and sell the stamps for much more than the purchase
| price of the IRC.
|
| Of course, it didn't work. There wasn't anything fundamentally
| wrong with the arbitrage scheme, but the profit per coupon was
| way too low to make it feasible as a business. Ponzi pivoted to
| paying off older investments with new investments, and the rest
| is history.
| munificent wrote:
| I would delight to receive birthday cards in Maruchan Ramen form.
| sixothree wrote:
| As is tradition.
| bee_rider wrote:
| A cheaper option (if we're going to do away with the restriction
| that the post card should be sent _by_ the sender) would be for
| the recipient to hook their printer up to the network, and just
| send bits.
|
| It is better, actually, you can even scan a real hand written
| post card.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| We could even make a standardised protocol, where anyone could
| send messages to any connected printer: like letters, except a
| facsimile of the original document is produced. I'm struggling
| to think of a catchy name for this, though.
| kennywinker wrote:
| It's not a fax unless it's from the facsimile region of
| france. What you're describing is just sparkling email.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| You can even still do fax machines if you really wanted to.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| owning a printer is never the cheaper option.
| itintheory wrote:
| I think it depends. I bought a Dell 1700 laser printer for
| the low price of $0 at a second hand store about 19 years
| ago. They said it was failing to pull paper from the tray,
| and I could have it if I wanted. I fixed the rollers
| responsible for feeding (turned the rubber wheels inside
| out), and used it for another 10 years without issue. Sure,
| toner costs some money, but an off-brand toner cartridge is
| $25, rated for 3000 pages. I have also needed to replace the
| drum, and at one point picked up a second 1700 into which I
| had to put the old drum and toner after some failure or
| another.
|
| I'd estimate I've put in $200 at most, and probably put
| 15-20k pages through it. Still prints just fine. It doesn't
| have color, or networking features, but I can share it on the
| network from the connected computer. I'm not sure they make
| anything this reliable these days, but I bet there's quite a
| few old laser printers floating around still.
| rationalist wrote:
| I'm sorry the ink cartel hurt you. May I introduce you to the
| world of laser printers?
|
| My color laser printer has definitely been cheaper than me
| driving to the store hundreds of times to print thousands of
| color prints.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| When compared to amazon prime, a laser printer can be cheaper
| than a single year. Add a pile of paper and the printer is
| cheaper even if it breaks every year and a half.
| systemerror wrote:
| Don't give money to amazon that is better spent on an amazingly
| efficient postal service. Amazon is subsidized by imaginary money
| until they put all their competition out of business(including
| USPS).
| Fwirt wrote:
| My honest question is: If you pull shenanigans like this, isn't
| it actually making Amazon burn through said imaginary money,
| thus hastening its demise? The cost of delivering a potato has
| to be on the order of at least a couple dollars.
| relaxing wrote:
| Amazon will close your account before you can impact their
| bottom line.
| crumpled wrote:
| I think they let you (not YOU necessarily, but the
| proverbial you.) get away with stuff because they know your
| habits and you probably make more money for them than you
| realize.
|
| I can almost guarantee that everyone mentioned in that blog
| post is a habitual Amazon user. They're all renewing Prime
| each year at full price and making a ton of regular
| purchases. The family has even turned on the FOMO by making
| Prime a family social network with social pressure to stay.
| I see it as a self-own, personally.
|
| Edit: I'm taking part of this to the root of the thread
| roncesvalles wrote:
| I don't think Amazon is losing money. It's really just that
| efficient.
|
| E.g. an Amazon van rolls through my street multiple times a
| day. What is the marginal cost of them stopping at my house
| and dropping off a potato?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| At your house it might be fractions of a cent.
|
| At my house, it's a 140 mile round trip between the
| fulfillment center ("are you feeling fulfilled yet?") and
| the drop off location.
|
| OTOH, there's likely more of "you" than there are of "me"
| ...
| ajdlinux wrote:
| Assuming it's the US we're talking about, the federal
| minimum wage is $7.25, which means that if every worker
| involved is paid at the minimum wage, you incur a cent of
| labour costs every 4.97 person-seconds. AFAICT, most
| Amazon workers are paid substantially higher than the
| federal minimum wage. And that's just labour costs.
|
| While Amazon is efficient, "fractions of a cent" is
| probably the wrong order of magnitude for even the most
| efficient order.
| hekkle wrote:
| That's not even mentioning their additional overheads,
| like the cost of fuel for their idling van as they drop
| off your potato.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| You might be 140 miles round trip to the nearest
| fulfilment centre, but you're almost certainly closer to
| your nearest neighbours who regularly buy stuff from
| Amazon, so the van is probably coming pretty close to you
| any way.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I hate USPS, and will not be doing anything to benefit them
| until they offer a way to limit my deliveries to once a month,
| and opt out of anything that has "or current resident"
|
| At the very least they should charge more for bulk mail, not
| give out discounts.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Unfortunately bulk mail is the only thing paying the bills.
| That and being a last mile delivery service for Amazon.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Which is a totally valid reason to hate USPS.
|
| The USPS is a government-run spam delivery service that
| there is no way to opt out of. Those of us who do banking
| and other administrative tasks online would be better off
| if the government shut it down completely, or better yet
| subsidized it slightly so it doesn't have to deliver spam
| to survive.
|
| But as it is, I don't see any good reason to have any more
| respect for USPS than I do for any other spammer.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Yes, exactly. I wish the post office were subsidized and
| acted in the interests of the public. But it is not, and
| does not.
| lkbm wrote:
| Doesn't seem like USPS is the spammer. They're Gmail.
| People send spam and USPS/Gmail delivers it.
| umanwizard wrote:
| No, it's completely different. Gmail actively tries to
| prevent spam. If they catch you sending it, you will be
| banned, and they let individual users block whoever they
| want. A huge part of their product is automated spam
| filtering.
|
| On the other hand, spam delivery is the business model of
| USPS. They actively and intentionally market and sell
| their services to spammers, and not surprisingly, give
| normal users no way to opt out.
| kmoser wrote:
| There are mail forwarding services[0] that let you
| automatically filter out junk mail. Yes, they cost money,
| but at least you can accomplish your goal of opting out
| (or in) from receiving postal mail from certain senders.
| [0] E.g. https://www.usglobalmail.com/virtual-mailbox/
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| You will still get mail to your address though...
| kmoser wrote:
| If your goal is to receive zero mail at your address,
| simply have all your email forwarded to this service and
| configure it to opt-out of all notifications.
|
| Alternately, you can forward your mail to an entirely
| different address. (This is just a Gedankenexperiment;
| please don't spam strangers by forwarding your mail to
| them.)
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| A lot of mail is marked as do not forward
| SoftTalker wrote:
| And junk/bulk rate mail is never forwarded.
| kmoser wrote:
| Such mail is returned to the sender, which means you will
| never receive it, so problem solved.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| In Canada, you can place a red dot (or write no unsolicited
| mail) on your mailbox and they will withhold delivering
| anything not directly addressed to you.
|
| I was shocked when I moved to SF and found out there was no
| way to opt out of unaddressed mail (or "current resident").
| euroderf wrote:
| In Finland AFAICT there's no bulk postal rate. Instead,
| paper spam is delivered thru mail slots by private services
| that hit all the buildings in the neighborhood and drop
| collections of paper spam. So, many people post a note on
| their door opting out from this stuff. (Ei mainoksia = No
| ads.) It must be saving absolutely huge amounts of paper.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Fun fact: in the U.S. it's illegal to put anything but
| mail (delivered by USPS) in a mailbox or mail slot. USPS
| wants a monopoly on that paper spam.
| vidarh wrote:
| Can you explain? Amazon is wildly profitable, and while AWS is
| far higher margin than their retail businesses, everything I
| can find suggests their retail segment also has a healthy
| operating margin.
| bandrami wrote:
| If you put all of the money Amazon as a whole has taken since
| it was founded in 1994 in a stack on the left, and all of the
| money Amazon as a whole has spent since then in a stack on
| the right, the stack on the left is slightly larger, but this
| has only been true for a couple of years now.
|
| It's the difference in 1990s billionaires and 2020s
| billionaires. Bill Gates was so rich because he owned a lot
| of Microsoft shares and received profits from those shares as
| dividends. Jeff Bezos is so rich because he owns a lot of
| Amazon shares and people keep being willing to pay more and
| more for those shares so his _notional_ net worth increases
| (AMZN has never paid a dividend).
| umanwizard wrote:
| Can you share numbers? What are Amazon's margins?
| vidarh wrote:
| Across the board they're about 11%, I believe, though
| retail seems to be about 5% despite being the bulk of
| revenue. AWS has far higher margins.
| ornornor wrote:
| > his notional net worth increases (AMZN has never paid a
| dividend).
|
| But that's exactly the loophole: you can borrow for very
| cheap against this notional equity without incurring a cent
| in taxes (since divodends are never paid out)
| vidarh wrote:
| None of which supports the argument of the person I replied
| to that what you buy from them today is somehow "subsidised
| by imaginary money"
| sambaumann wrote:
| Turns out, at least in my area, for the grocery items you need to
| buy at least $25 worth to qualify for the free shipping.
| modeless wrote:
| Yeah, this is misleading. You can't send a lime for $0.25. It's
| $3.24 minimum.
| s0rce wrote:
| I checked the lime listed and it seems to be a regular amazon
| prime item for me (norcal) and not the grocery you described,
| which we also have.
| modeless wrote:
| Did you press the buy button? The shipping fee is $2.99
| s0rce wrote:
| Ah, you're right. Sneaky.
| andy99 wrote:
| I canceled prime ~8 years ago because where I am, half the
| stuff I wanted was considered an "add on item" that could only
| be shipped free if you had > $35 of other stuff, which is a
| complete scam because you get that without prime.
|
| Maybe that was just for me (in a large Canadian city at the
| time) or maybe they don't do that anymore?
|
| I haven't considered getting prime since, it would be a lot
| more interesting if it actually provided the shipping terms
| they advertise.
| ics wrote:
| It was like that in NYC at the time as well. I'm not sure
| when it stopped but have not seen add-on items in a long time
| and most things seem to ship immediately regardless of price
| (with Prime).
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yeah, haven't seen in a long time either. I can't help but
| wonder if it's related to Amazon building its own delivery
| infrastructure instead of relying on UPS/USPS like it once
| did? (At least where I am.)
| sciurus wrote:
| I checked the first five items while logged in with Amazon
| Prime. They all required a minimum order of either $25 or $100
| to get free shipping.
| sanex wrote:
| Just sent my friend a bag of gravy mix, thank you!
| netsharc wrote:
| Ah, luckily the climate doesn't mind that oil was extracted, a
| phone case was produced out of it, shipped from China, to end up
| not even being used but just as a "greeting card".
|
| Why yes, I am fun at parties.
| xxpor wrote:
| The oil used for shipping from Shenzhen to Long Beach is
| completely trivial compared to what the truck used getting it
| from Long Beach to Pasadena.
| MinimalAction wrote:
| I'd love a napkin math calculation at this.
| hi-wintermute wrote:
| I did some napkin math on this as I recently picked up a 3D
| Printer and wondered the environmental comparison to print-
| at-home vs pick something up at the store and I was
| surprised. Had some help from Claude but "last mile
| delivery" is absolutely where the majority of the kWh is
| burned in the supply chain.
|
| Container ships use ~0.015 kWh per ton-km[1] and a car is
| ~1.35 kWh/km.
|
| If you go to the store and end up getting >10 things it
| becomes "worth it" from an energy standpoint. Anything less
| printing at home seemed to be more economical... Not an
| expert though just saying it opened my eyes to how
| inefficient "last mile delivery" energy consumption is.
|
| [1] https://www.withouthotair.com/c15/page_95.shtml (old
| reference)
| shagie wrote:
| > Not an expert though just saying it opened my eyes to
| how inefficient "last mile delivery" energy consumption
| is.
|
| One of the oddities of home shopping and delivery is that
| it can be _more_ efficient.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5020321/food-
| delivery-m...
|
| > In 2022, researchers from the University of Michigan
| and Ford Motor Co. modeled a single 36-item grocery cart
| to compare greenhouse emissions from an e-commerce
| grocery delivery and a traditional trip to the store to
| get the same items. Gregory Keoleian and colleagues at
| the university's Center for Sustainable Systems found
| that using an electric vehicle to pick up groceries could
| cut emissions by as much as half, compared to a gas-
| powered vehicle.
|
| > They also found that home delivery could be an even
| better option. That's because with a delivery vehicle,
| orders are often clustered, with a driver dropping off
| not just your groceries, but also hitting neighbors
| during the same run. "Delivery is actually going to be
| more efficient in general than driving yourself in a
| gasoline SUV to the store to pick up your groceries,"
| Keoleian says.
|
| The mentioned paper is
| https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-
| publications/car...
|
| ---
|
| https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/what-if-more-people-
| bought...
|
| > A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S
| households, people hop in their car to buy groceries,
| driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store.
| ... All these car trips result in carbon pollution: over
| 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from car tailpipes
| just from driving back and forth to the grocery store.
|
| ---
|
| https://csanr.wsu.edu/how-do-grocery-and-meal-kit-
| deliveries...
|
| > While it is common for the consumer to associate
| convenience in the food industry with increased
| greenhouse gas emissions, this is not always the case.
| Results from a 2013 University of Washington study
| indicate that grocery delivery has the potential to
| reduce carbon emissions anywhere from 20 to 75 percent
| (Ma 2013), while another study out of Finland found the
| potential for grocery delivery to reduce emissions by up
| to 87 percent (Siikavirta et al. 2002).
|
| ---
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/shop-online-
| sustaina...
|
| > Buying goods online can be better for the environment
| than in-store shopping for one fundamental reason: With
| online shopping, a single truck or van can replace
| multiple car trips, by multiple households, to stores. It
| helps to think of it this way: In most of the United
| States, almost every purchase means putting a vehicle on
| the road--either your own or a delivery company's.
|
| ---
|
| Some others:
|
| https://blog.sevensenders.com/en/ecommerce-carbon-
| footprint-...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250302115526/https://sustai
| nab... (this one is quite comprehensive also including
| the difference in packaging)
|
| And those articles come with their own citations to other
| articles.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| My quixotic bicycle grocery buying system still wins,
| though.
| eru wrote:
| You need to take into account your system requires there
| to be a nice store (presumably with aircon and lights on)
| within your cycling distance.
|
| With online shopping and delivery, the warehouse can be a
| dark, cramped, hot, robot-filled pandemonium in the worst
| part of town.
| shagie wrote:
| > With online shopping and delivery, the warehouse can be
| a dark, cramped, hot, robot-filled pandemonium in the
| worst part of town.
|
| Tom Scott - How many robots does it take to run a grocery
| store? https://youtu.be/ssZ_8cqfBlE (grocery fulfillment
| centers are different than Amazon)
|
| ... It's also coldish. https://youtu.be/w2HnKpTo2So
| themaninthedark wrote:
| So the EPA report is bullshit interpretation of the USDA
| study: >A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S
| households, people hop in their car to buy groceries,
| driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store.2
|
| USDA study: >Overall, households are, on average, 2.2
| miles from the nearest SNAP-authorized supermarket or
| supercenter, but their usual store is 3.8 miles away.
|
| Based on these questions: >This report presents initial
| findings from the FoodAPS survey on three key questions:
|
| 1. How do shoppers travel to their main store and how far
| do they travel to get there?
|
| 2. In what type of store (eg., supermarket, mass
| merchandiser, convenience store) do U.S. households
| typically shop for groceries?
|
| 3. Do store and travel mode differ by participation in
| food assistance programs or food security status?
|
| This can only tell us the distance to the store and does
| not support "All these car trips result in carbon
| pollution: over 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from
| car tailpipes just from driving back and forth to the
| grocery store."
|
| In order to draw that conclusion, you need to show that
| the travel to and from grocery store was single purpose.
| Which is not supported by the data.
|
| Most people I know don't go out of their way to go
| grocery shopping nor do they take specific trips to do
| so. It will be done in conjunction with another outing or
| when returning from work.
|
| This could also! explain the reason that food secure
| people travel greater distance, as they tend to travel
| greater distance overall they choose a location closer to
| their travel route rather than their dwelling.
| shagie wrote:
| https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-transportation
|
| > While nearly three-quarters of the world's cargo is
| carried by ocean-going ships, road vehicles like trucks and
| vans make up the majority, 65%, of freight's emissions.
| Most ships burn fossil fuels and emit carbon, but they
| carry large amounts of freight at the same time, making
| them the most efficient way to move cargo. Road freight,
| however, can emit more than 100 times as much CO2 as ships
| to carry the same amount of freight the same distance. Road
| transport is also a fast-growing sector--80% of the global
| increase in diesel consumption can be attributed to trucks.
| E-commerce and home delivery are two reasons for this
| growth.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Not disagreeing but it's amazing a ship plowing water out
| of the way is so much more efficient.
|
| Perhaps trains beat road transport efficiency to a
| similar degree.
| tdeck wrote:
| This is why European cities had so many canals back in
| the day.
| butvacuum wrote:
| classic volume grows faster than surface area.
|
| also, fuel is a huge cost (maybe even the main cost), and
| drag has a >linear relationship with speed- so the ships
| will slow down based on fuel prices.
| jedimastert wrote:
| They do, trains are BAFFLINGLY fuel efficient in terms of
| pounds of cargo. Once they get up to speed, trains can
| move one ton of cargo about 480 mile per gallon, vs 130
| with trucks
| doikor wrote:
| > Perhaps trains beat road transport efficiency to a
| similar degree.
|
| Not just efficiency but you can use electric trains if
| your tracks are electrified. Add into that electricity
| production system that is mostly renewable+nuclear (the
| Nordics for example) and you get very very low emissions.
| cinnamonteal wrote:
| The distance from Shenzhen to Long Beach is some 300 times
| the distance from Long Beach to Pasadena, depending on
| where exactly in Pasadena and which route you take. The CO2
| emissions factor for a truck is some 10-100x that of a
| container ship. The exact ratio depends on what kind of
| truck, and what scope of emissions are being included. The
| more one accounts for, the more it will favor the boat. But
| overall, the emissions from the oceanic leg of the trip are
| probably anywhere from 1-3x those of the truck.
| shagie wrote:
| From the data at the end of
| https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-transportation
| +----------+------------------------+---------------+----
| ------+----------+ | Mode | Freight (bn
| tonne-km) | CO2 (Mt) | CO2/Frgt | Vs. Sea |
| +----------+------------------------+---------------+----
| ------+----------+ | Air | 303
| | 155 | 511 | 79 | | Rail
| | 10,842 | 170 | 15 | 2
| | | Road | 26,807 | 2,230
| | 83 | 12 | | Sea | 101,486
| | 657 | 6 | 1 | +--------
| --+------------------------+---------------+----------+--
| --------+
| mjevans wrote:
| Bulk rates and flatter surfaces win.
|
| However at some point branching is required, and the bulk
| rates also add latency.
| conductr wrote:
| You have to normalize for package volume. There's one
| ship involved, how many delivery vehicles and other auto
| related logistics until that whole shipload has reached
| its final destination?
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| The distance the boat has to cover is 11800 kilometers, and
| the truck covers only 54 kilometers. Taking that average of
| 12 times more usage from the table of sibling comment means
| the ship is still 20x worse.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| But what if you apportion the fuel usage over the items
| transported? Presumably the ship carries far more items
| than the truck.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| This is already taken into account: Shagie's table is
| based on [1], which is per kilogram-kilometer
|
| [1] https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-
| transportation
| eru wrote:
| I suspect they are underestimating how efficient ocean
| shipping really is.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| Do you have any basis for that which I could refer to in
| discussion?
| xxpor wrote:
| Unfortunately a video but this covers it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aH3ZTTkGAs It talks about
| the meme about "pears grown in Argentina, packed in
| Thailand, sold in the US"
|
| Gemini's summary about the shipping CO2 sections:
|
| Shipping accounts for 80% of all international transport
| but only 37% of transport's carbon emissions (9:13 - 9:18).
|
| Road transport is highlighted as the "King of pollution,"
| making up less than 10% of international transport but over
| half of emissions (9:26 - 9:32).
|
| Ferrying pears across the Earth is actually less carbon
| intensive than driving them in a truck to a packing plant
| across one's own country (9:48 - 9:52).
|
| All international shipping combined is responsible for only
| 2.5% of global emissions (9:58 - 10:15).
| chrneu wrote:
| oh okay then that consumption is totally fine. no worries
| here mate!
| shagie wrote:
| If the goal is reducing carbon emissions, making shipping
| emit half as much (650 Megatonne to 325 Mt) would be less
| of a gain than making trucking emit only 80% of its carbon
| (2,230 Mt to 1,830 Mt).
|
| The question is which is easier to do (ROI)... to cut the
| shipping fuel carbon footprint by half, or over the road
| trucking (that's about 1/4th of all the shipping) by 20%?
| For that matter, moving 25% of the over the road trucking
| to rail would accomplish that too.
| codebje wrote:
| EV trucking is a growing thing and might get that 20%
| reduction in trucking carbon footprints.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| That's better than the situation in Vancouver, where
| containers from the port go by rail 1000 km/600 miles and
| over Rogers Pass (1300 m/4400 ft), to logistics centres near
| Calgary, and then back by truck to Vancouver.
| crumpled wrote:
| I'd send a free text message to a family member, offering them
| money in exchange for them not sending me trash from Amazon.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I call, and raise you my own sardonic answer (not this one, the
| top-level one). :-\
| robrain wrote:
| I'm in the same corner of the parties with you.
|
| Also I'm passionately opposed to feathering billionaires'
| nests, even with fractions of pennies of profit.
|
| This story is funny, but also so so sad.
| account42 wrote:
| The climate does indeed not mind.
| anukin wrote:
| Ah yes the oil that you saved by not doing these got spent by
| the uber rich going to davos in private jets. Hell in fact even
| if a million of you saved it still would pale the damage done
| by private jets.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| A lot of profit is really just finding ways to hide the costs.
| Climate change is a massive withdrawal made on future
| generations.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I feel I should point out that USPS has a lower rate for
| postcards (currently $0.61), so the threshold might be a bit
| lower.
|
| I know that this is tongue-in-cheek and would be pretty funny to
| receive, but it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. The
| experience of getting a little message printed on receipt paper
| is nothing like the experience of receiving a note or card in the
| mail. Through the mail you receive something physically from
| someone with their handwriting and some personality to it.
| Getting the Amazon message is more like printing out a text
| message on crummy paper.
|
| Also, I don't have Prime, so it definitely isn't cost competitive
| for me anyway.
| hatthew wrote:
| I agree in general, but as a one-off thing I'd very much enjoy
| getting a lime with a message saying "this was cheaper than
| sending a letter myself"
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| I've started sending paperbacks instead of greeting cards
| when someone I know needs a get-well-soon card. In stores
| around here, greeting cards are often $7ish + postage. I can
| frequently ship a paperback with a gift receipt for $5 total.
| I include a gift message on the gift receipt, and choose a
| book I think someone might like to read while they're out of
| commission.
|
| I guess it's a bit like postal arbitrage, if I accept the
| cost of greeting cards themselves as part of the cost of the
| activity.
|
| To the extent that anyone has commented much, those who have
| commented had very positive reactions to what amounts to a
| book recommendation and a copy of the book I'm recommending
| along with a little note.
| pastel8739 wrote:
| This is a good idea, but I also want to point out that a
| regular piece of paper makes a perfectly good greeting card
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| It absolutely does! I like the addition of the thing to
| read (in the case of the book) or the thing to look at
| (usually a funny or interesting picture in the case of
| the greeting card) but I agree that the purchased thing
| is not truly necessary.
| tempestn wrote:
| Haven't done it in a long time, but years ago I had a
| similar realization that picture frames were cheaper than
| cards. So you can frame a little note, either with a
| picture or just suggest they can reuse it if they like.
| Buying greeting cards always felt like kind of a waste.
| Lately our kids' schools have been doing a thing each year
| where the kids do some art and then you can buy cards (and
| other things) with it, so we've been using those as they're
| at least a bit personal. Once that's done, maybe I'll give
| picture frames again (or paperbacks or cans of tomato
| soup...)
| dizhn wrote:
| Reminds me of the old collect call trick. Rather than state
| your name when prompted you transmit a short, perhaps even
| coded, message. Then the receiving party declines the call.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| _" You have a collect call from
| MomWe'reAtTheArcadeCanYouPickUsUp?_
|
| _Would you like to accept the charges? "_
| intrasight wrote:
| Ahh, the 70s. Good memories.
| tempestn wrote:
| I recall using this occasionally in the 90s even. There
| was also a period where I would regularly "one ring" my
| parents as code to call me back. IIRC that was because my
| cell plan had unlimited (or at least more) incoming
| minutes.
| account42 wrote:
| It will never stop being weird to me how US mobile plans
| make (or made) you pay for incoming calls and texts.
| dizhn wrote:
| Collect calls would have been a thing until cell phones
| got very common because you had to use pay phones when
| you were outside and you somehow never had quarters.
| umanwizard wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs
| systemtest wrote:
| How can it be that low? The Netherlands has a stamp rate of
| EUR1.40 for 20 grams and you can traverse that country in three
| hours. 20 to 50 grams is EUR2.80. If you have to cross a border
| that goes up to EUR4.22
|
| Can you send a letter thousands of miles for only 61 cents?
| That's amazing!
| mechazawa wrote:
| afaik PostNL has to make a profit and the USPS can operate at
| a loss.
|
| Classic Dutch privatization
| systemtest wrote:
| PostNL is a private company that used to be government
| owned. PostNL currently operates at a loss for mail
| delivery. They are mandated by law to deliver mail and that
| is something they can't get out of. There is not a maximum
| what PostNL can ask for stamps but the ACM (Authority
| Consumer & Market) can step in if they raise prices too
| much.
|
| So it appears to be privatised but with strict government
| regulations.
| astura wrote:
| >Can you send a letter thousands of miles for only 61 cents?
|
| Letter, no. 61 cents is the post card rate, so you can send a
| post card thousands of miles for that. If you introduce an
| outside envelope its 78 cents to mail that thousands of
| miles, up to 1oz.
| systemtest wrote:
| That is still very impressive from my European viewpoint.
| astura wrote:
| It's impressive to me too, as an American. Especially
| when you consider that rates include from the east coast
| of a continent to the west coast, faraway islands
| (Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa) as well as closer islands
| (Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands).
| Spare_account wrote:
| https://www.britannica.com/question/How-is-the-USPS-funded
|
| > _the USPS faced financial difficulties, posting losses of
| $6.5 billion in fiscal 2023 and $8 billion in fiscal 2024,
| leading to a request for $14 billion in government
| assistance._
|
| It would appear that the USPS operates at a loss at these
| prices
| nerdsniper wrote:
| In the same sense that public roads "operate at a loss",
| sure. Neither toll-free roads or the USPS were originally
| intended to somehow break-even. They're infrastructure
| services provided by the government towards a functioning
| society.
| slumberlust wrote:
| Economy of scale. By the time it gets sorted and on a truck,
| 100 miles is roughly the same cost as 1000.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| for $1.70 you can send a letter to almost anywhere in the
| world.
|
| https://www.usps.com/international/first-class-mail-
| internat...
| petcat wrote:
| Not to mention that I would much rather give my $0.61 to a
| public service like the Post Office than to Amazon.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Eh, if the post office - which is a pretty efficient
| operation - thinks it costs $0.61 to mail a postcard, it
| probably costs Amazon more than $0.25 to ship someone a lime.
| gosub100 wrote:
| If they weren't the #1 purveyor of junk mail I would agree
| with you. It costs $0.71 to send a card to a family member,
| but much less than that for a scammy marketing company to
| mass mail junk that will go straight to the trash.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've used something like this list to get "over the hump" for $35
| to reach free shipping without prime.
|
| It's horribly annoying to have a product that is $34.99 and you
| want it, but it'll cost shipping unless you get the damn
| Volkswagen screw; and then Amazon ships them individually anyway.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| Just play their stupid game. My wife does this all the time,
| buys random items just to go past the free shipping range, then
| the item goes into trash (or is returned, if possible).
|
| Even sellers started doing this, but instead of selling random
| items, they sell "extra hardened packaging material"
| conveniently at $1, $2, $3... prices. Of course when item
| arrives, no extra material to be seen. When questioned, one of
| them said "well, the package had cardboard box - that's it,
| wink wink, please do not report us".
| lkbm wrote:
| I recently bought a small pack of pens because 1. I keep not
| having pens when I need them, but mostly 2. Subscribe and Save
| discount on some much higher priced increased by 5%-10%, easily
| overwhelming the price of the pens.
| koyote wrote:
| I have done this specifically with the second item in the list
| in the OP.
|
| Not only did I do it to get free shipping, I got it to get free
| international shipping.
|
| For extra bonus CO2 points, the other item was coming from a
| different country. So I basically paid $0.42 to have a single
| packet of kool-aid shipped across the pacific ocean.
|
| (I'd never had kool-aid before and I must say I was
| disappointed.)
| ornornor wrote:
| You can also get preorder items, it adds to the total. Your
| actual items hips right away but the preorder doesn't. Once you
| get your item, cancel the preorder and you're done.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is something I'd not thought of before ... diabolically
| efficient!
| deviation wrote:
| Here in Ireland, a stamp is 1.85eur.
|
| So. Many. Possibilities.
| pkaye wrote:
| Wow didn't realize its much more expensive in some places
| outside the US. I'd think the smaller land area would make it
| cheaper.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In Denmark it is EUR3.08 for a 100g letter.
|
| This appears to be the cost without subsidy, with the mail
| service now run by a private company.
|
| It's fine. I receive less than the average 10 letters per
| year (including junk mail). I check the mail box every two
| weeks or so.
| autoexec wrote:
| > This appears to be the cost without subsidy, with the
| mail service now run by a private company.
|
| That just means that whatever it actually costs to deliver
| mail to/from whatever parts of Denmark they provide service
| for, the people who use the service will pay that cost plus
| an additional cost on top of it so that the private owner
| (and perhaps their shareholders) can line their pockets.
| The nice thing about public services is that you avoid
| paying that extra money just so that a small number of
| people can personally profit from it. You can also lose a
| lot of transparency and control over how the service is
| run.
|
| That said, I'm a bit envious of the lack of junk mail.
| autoexec wrote:
| The USPS is an amazing service. Extremely dependable and
| affordable. They service places that no sane company ever
| would and they do a pretty good job. The only real downside
| is that it centralizes government surveillance, but the same
| can be said for the other large/popular private delivery
| services.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| This story comes to my mind.
|
| A pizzeria owner made money buying his own $24 pizzas from
| DoorDash for $16
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262316/doordash-pizza-p...
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you want to fight the VCs, you _have_ to pull stunts like
| this. If they want to destroy local infrastructure because
| "free market", in an attempt to secure monopolies for
| themselves, then let them operate in a free market.
| supertrope wrote:
| VC Fund My Life!
| jaggederest wrote:
| The appropriate musical accompaniment:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbH-U2b_EsQ
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I was hoping this would be a rickroll.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi
|
| Win everything you need from sweepstakes!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > then let them operate in a free market.
|
| I think you meant to say "operate in a market that is
| regulated in precisely the way they want it to be".
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I said what I meant: most VC-backed startups could not
| survive in a real-world environment. Thank you for
| highlighting the distinction. Note that a free market isn't
| necessarily an unregulated market (see: Adam Smith).
|
| Personally, I don't believe that free markets are a
| sensible way to manage local affairs. They work well on a
| medium scale, where goods are fungible and efficiency
| matters: but for something like the local pizza place,
| customer behaviour doesn't match that of a market
| participant. I don't think it's sensible to expect the
| local pizza place to be free of arbitrage opportunities.
| Someone who identifies and exploits such opportunities
| (e.g. "free meals available on request") would be taking
| advantage of goodwill, and the reason we can't have nice
| things. However, if a large corpo comes along and starts
| trying to undercut the locals, _absolutely_ mug them for
| all they 're worth: they're playing a different game, and
| it's not one you should want them to win.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> for something like the local pizza place, customer
| behaviour doesn 't match that of a market participant._
|
| I'm not sure why you think that. "Market participant"
| doesn't mean "always takes the lowest priced deal".
| People are willing to pay higher prices for food from
| local restaurants, as opposed to chains, fast food, etc.,
| because they feel that the extra value they are getting
| (better quality, knowing the people who make the food,
| the atmosphere of the restaurant, etc.) is worth it.
| That's a free market.
|
| What is _not_ a free market is large corporations who get
| all kinds of government favors to prop them up coming in
| and taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities that the
| locals don 't have the time or the energy to protect
| against--still more if such opportunities involve
| "marketing" the locals' products in ways the locals
| didn't agree to, and would _not_ agree to if they were
| given the opportunity to make a choice. I completely
| agree with you that such things should be shut down.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > What is not a free market is
|
| A bit of a tangent, but price transparency is another
| factor.
|
| At least when economists publish their "it's the bestest
| and most efficient option" analyses their definition
| involves perfect information: No secret prices, no non-
| disclosure agreements, everybody knows what was paid for
| inputs and labor, etc.
|
| I bring this up because there is an unavoidable conflict
| between "the market that moves freely as a whole" version
| versus "the market where I'm free to keep secrets."
| datsci_est_2015 wrote:
| When the market does something I consider good, I call it
| free. When the market does something I consider bad, I
| call it not free [and it's the government's fault].
|
| Feels tangentially related to the No True Scotsman
| fallacy, but with the premise flipped?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> price transparency is another factor_
|
| Yes, agreed. One obvious place in the US where that is a
| huge problem is health care.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The change is that standardization of laws and limits to
| interstate commerce has made everything a national
| market.
|
| It doesn't benefit the market to make plumbing
| contracting a national business, for example.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The funny thing about truth is that a _lot_ of different,
| mutually-incompatible philosophical perspectives reach
| the same conclusions about it.
| https://existentialcomics.com/comic/258
| mattmaroon wrote:
| But why do you think they're harming "local infrastructure"?
| The food delivery services didn't hurt anything but their
| investors in the end. And they kept the restaurant industry
| alive during the pandemic, the fallout would have been so
| much worse. I work in the industry and know several
| bar/restaurant owners who will tell you DoorDash and
| competitors are the only reason they made it through 2020-21.
|
| Early on they stopped prohibiting restaurants from
| upcharging, so restaurants all did. They ended up with some
| extra sales and profits. The customer got VC funded free
| delivery.
|
| Enough alternatives kept the market place efficient. DoorDash
| can't get too abusive when UberEats and Instacart are
| competing, restaurants have no switching cost.
|
| The whole thing worked for basically everyone involved except
| maybe the investors (DoorDash has significantly
| underperformed the S&P since it debuted on the market.)
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This has not been my experience.
|
| From my side, as someone old enough to remember Domino's
| running the "there in thirty minutes or it's free"
| promotions... These delivery services absolutely tanked the
| quality of delivery.
|
| Now you can basically _only_ get slow delivery of over
| priced, cold food. Sure, you can get it from far more
| places, but it 's a pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one.
|
| Used to be if a restaurant offered delivery, it was ok food
| for delivery, at ok prices, and their drivers had gear to
| keep it warm and presentable.
|
| Now we basically only do pick up because these universal
| delivery companies suck at the one fucking thing they're
| supposed to do. But they've run all the local restaurants
| out of the delivery game.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| DoorDash finds a way to consistently screw up orders.
|
| Order A,B,C - receive only A+B, or A,B,D. No explanation.
| Tipped generously.
|
| For a long time, I myself drove and picked up my orders.
| The same restaurants rarely made mistakes. I never had to
| ask for missing item to be included. They always had
| everything in the bag.
|
| It's happened so often, it has to be malice from one of the
| parties involved.
| drnick1 wrote:
| > Tipped generously.
|
| You shouldn't tip delivery drivers, it's literally their
| job.
| gaudystead wrote:
| While I would love to agree with you, in America
| restaurants of all sizes (and personal transportation
| companies) seemingly often rely on tips from customers to
| supplement the wages of their workers instead of just
| paying them fairly.
| vasco wrote:
| Yeah so you shouldn't help them do that if you disagree
| with the practice
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It's a collective action problem: it can't be solved by
| individuals like this. All you'll achieve is complicity
| in wage theft. A viable approach might be to prefer doing
| business with companies who promise their workers a good
| wage, but this requires that your local businesses
| actually make that commitment. To get _that_ , you'll
| have to go outside the abstraction of the market, and
| actually talk to decisionmakers within the businesses.
| (This is sometimes called "activism".)
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| Have fun when no one wants to deliver food to you.
| ileonichwiesz wrote:
| The army of faceless delivery gig workers can't exactly
| pick and choose. They deliver the food or they get banned
| from the platform and replaced by the next guy.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >replaced by the next guy.
|
| There is a loser born every minute. (The loser has no
| choice in been born, though)
| drnick1 wrote:
| Do you also tip Amazon drivers? If not, then I don't see
| why food should be different.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Because they don't have a car full of 100 people's meals
| like Amazon drivers do with deliveries? You're ordering a
| personal taxi for your burrito.
| tjchear wrote:
| My understanding is food delivery companies take a huge cut
| (like 30%) so restaurants are forced to raise their prices
| significantly or risk losing customers. Even with that cut,
| food delivery customers still have to pay a significant
| delivery/service fee.
| hattmall wrote:
| Yeah, as someone else pointed out, the gig-delivery
| services killed the delivery industry. Sure I can get food
| from a bunch of shitty fast food places now, but deliveries
| are way more expensive and take forever. The only place
| that still does good delivery around me is Jimmy Johns and
| Dominoes. I used to have 15-20 good quality delivery places
| that were fast with free delivery. And I'm as talking on
| the phone averse as anyone but calling a delivery place was
| just easier than using an app and they could give you
| updates on when they were out of something or whatever.
|
| Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to
| order delivery food at all other than the two that run
| their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent
| experience. Anything else I either pick it or go without.
|
| It was also shady how they paid for ads to supplant the
| phone numbers on Google so you were calling Door dash
| instead of the food place.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Uber eats / Door Dash suck so much I have no desire to
| order delivery food at all other than the two that run
| their own delivery and I know it will be a consistent
| experience.
|
| Same. It's about the only reason why I order from Dominos
| occasionally. But last week it got delivered by Uber even
| though I ordered directly on their website. It also took
| 45 minutes to get delivered instead of the usual 10. So
| now the only Uber-free delivery I can get is a Japanese
| restaurant.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Dominos lets people order from Uber Eats but still
| handles delivery itself. Maybe they fall back to Uber
| drivers when they are short staffed.
|
| I don't know of any restaurants that previously had
| delivery of their own and switched. I'm sure they exist
| but it's vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined.
|
| So all DoorDash does is give you the consumer more
| options. If you don't like it, you don't use it and
| nobody is harmed.
|
| Only a small percent of restaurants delivered in the
| first place outside of the ones like pizza that still do.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >I don't know of any restaurants that previously had
| delivery of their own and switched. I'm sure they exist
| but it's vanishingly small, for the reasons outlined.
|
| Used to be that just about every chinese food and pizza
| place would deliver. Now it's all gig app BS unless it's
| a massive order.
| krisoft wrote:
| > calling a delivery place was just easier than using an
| app
|
| This is so much the polar opposite for me.
|
| First of all: restaurant discovery. With a phone
| interface you have to somehow out of band learn that
| there is a place who delivers to you, that they are open
| and obtain their menu. With an app no matter where you
| are it gives you a list of places which are open and
| deliver to you.
|
| Second is that you have all the time to browse the menu,
| do your research, contemplate, hand a phone around among
| many people, see your order, check your order, change
| your order, change your mind mid order. With a phone call
| a fast talking rushed person who often doesn't speak the
| language natively talks to you from a noisy kitchen. And
| they expect you to get on with it fast because you are
| holding up the line. You better already know what you are
| ordering and be ready to make decisions about any
| substitutions as they come up.
|
| Then comes the payment. With apps I'm only trusting my
| payment details to a large company who has the
| engineering resources to make the transaction secure.
| With a phone order you either pay to the delivery driver
| (does he accept card? Do i have enough cash if not?) or
| you read in your card details to the phone. Which is just
| bonkers unsecure on so many levels.
|
| Then comes the tracking: with the app i see when the food
| is ready, and where the driver is in the delivery with a
| continously updated ETA. With a phone? You can call them
| again if the food does not show up I guess. Good luck.
|
| Then comes the handover. With the phone if the food was
| pre-paid the delivery driver just gives the food to
| whomever. If it is paid on delivery they give it to
| whomever pays them. Hope it reaches you. With the apps
| i'm using the app displays a one time code which the
| driver ask for to check that you are who ordered.
|
| Every element of the experience is better with an app in
| my opinion.
|
| > and they could give you updates on when they were out
| of something
|
| So can they through the app. But instead of telling every
| single costumer about what they are out of they just
| click it once on their admin and the items in question
| are stricken through in the menu. I see that all the
| time.
| caminanteblanco wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, i enjoyed reading it, although it is
| paywalled: http://archive.today/H5FRo
| mhink wrote:
| Note: the Verge article links to this blog post, describing the
| situation in more detail:
| https://www.readmargins.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
| sprinkly-dust wrote:
| Thank you, this was a fun rabbit hole to dive down. That blog
| also has a well-argued article about Zero Interest Rate
| Policy which relates to the doordash story:
| https://www.readmargins.com/p/zirp-explains-the-world
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| They could have made another $5 per 10 pizzas after order #1
| by just delivering the pizza to themselves and sending the
| same boxes back out in the next delivery, and so on.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| Junkfoodconomists term this "the velocity of pizza".
| mattmaroon wrote:
| An actual DoorDash driver had to do the delivery though. So
| you risk being reported and also, if they take awhile,
| pizza gets cold.
|
| But they also could have just raised prices on everything
| but the cheap one DoorDash was using for pricing.
| bruce511 wrote:
| No, he means recycling the _boxes_ not the pizza inside
| the box.
|
| The pizza itself can be literally given away (although if
| not on the premises, then presumably a box would be
| required.)
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I mean you can just have a silicone mold in there, no
| actual pizza required.
| phyzome wrote:
| Risk being reported? To the company that you don't want
| interacting with you anyhow?
| xg15 wrote:
| Maybe that's my EU mindset, but I'm baffled how it's even
| legal to add a company to your public listing - complete with
| fake phone number - and just declare they're taking
| deliveries, all against the explicit wishes of the company.
|
| (Complete with "chill bro, I was just <s>joking</s>demand
| testing you" at the end)
|
| The blogger calls this being "tricked" to sign up for
| DoorDash. Seems to me, this is the same way a burglar
| "tricks" you into giving them your valuables.
| eru wrote:
| Well, you can probably add some fine print somewhere that
| listings are just for educational purposes or something and
| may not represent the actual company.
| silvestrov wrote:
| I can baffle you even more: if you register your company in
| Delaware, you don't even need to specify who owns the
| company.
|
| You only need to specify the name and address of the
| registered agent, which is sort of a "contact person", not
| somebody who works for the company.
|
| https://www.delawarebusinessincorporators.com/blogs/news/ca
| n... and https://velawood.com/anonymity-in-delaware/
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Lots of states do this. It's not just some Delaware
| thing. If you're doing "solidly interstate" business
| there's other reasons to file in Delaware.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Other states are worse or better these days.
|
| The US is
| Majromax wrote:
| It could be a trademark violation, even in the US, under
| the argument that DoorDash was "passing itself off" as the
| infringed-upon company. However, DoorDash would then argue
| that it was being honest - it was genuinely delivering
| authentic goods. It could violate trademark no more than a
| convenience store violates a trademark by correctly
| claiming it sells Coca-Cola.
| cortesoft wrote:
| The pizza owner from that article is my wife's cousin!
| rhplus wrote:
| Ha! It's the trick Richard used in Silicon Valley season 5
| episode 1 (2 years before the blog post) to bankrupt
| "SliceLine" and buy out their devs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_season_5
| Spooky23 wrote:
| A friend of mine did this, and had the food delivered to
| himself.
|
| They banned him eventually.
| scottmcdot wrote:
| Is there a simple way to search for everything and order by price
| descending? I'm in Australia so those items aren't much use.
| m-hodges wrote:
| lol everyone in the comments is taking this way too seriously
| johnfn wrote:
| Somewhat off-topic, but when I click on "Case-Mate - Case for
| 2009 LG Xenon - Marsala"[1], the "About this item" section simply
| states:
|
| About this item
|
| - Do
|
| - Not
|
| - Buy
|
| - This
|
| - Product
|
| What on earth is going on here?
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09D51KNQM
| crumpled wrote:
| Jeff Bezos has more money than the Federal Trade Commission.
| That's how we pick the winner in any conflict.
| jp191919 wrote:
| You can pre-order it...
|
| I actually used to have(maybe still have?) a LG Xenon
| brk wrote:
| It's an 18 pound phone case for less than a dollar. How bad
| could it be?
| nunez wrote:
| It might be a placeholder product to hold the ASIN.
|
| Some (many?) vendors on Amazon will recycle pages this way.
| Sell some item, change the item and description to dummy values
| when it stops selling, change to another item that will be
| sold, repeat.
|
| This is usually done to keep the reviews, though I've also
| heard about this being used for money laundering.
| tdeck wrote:
| It's amazing that this has been going on for decades and
| Amazon still doesn't give a shit.
| ornornor wrote:
| Amazon gets a commission on the sale and doesn't bear the
| cost of the returns. What's not to like/where is the
| problem/everybody wins/nothing to see here
| nunez wrote:
| which is why i've stopped my prime subscription many years
| ago and only buy items there as a last resort.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| To the author, would you consider changing the "key photo"? I
| sent the weblink to a friend, and the key photo in iMessage is
| the pregnancy test and they got the wrong impression about the
| site/prank. Pick the lemon or can of beans perhaps?
| kyleee wrote:
| Link previews were a mistake
| crumpled wrote:
| I can almost guarantee that everyone mentioned in that blog post
| is a habitual Amazon user. They're all renewing Prime each year
| at full price and making a ton of regular purchases. The family
| has even turned on the FOMO by making Prime a family social
| network with social pressure to stay. I see it as a self-own,
| personally.
| chatmasta wrote:
| This is just being rude to delivery drivers.
| rationalist wrote:
| I think they would prefer to deliver small items than large,
| heavy items.
| chatmasta wrote:
| The alternative is delivering no items. Spamming all your
| friends with $0.83 items is a waste of resources, period.
| When Temu did this on an industrial scale the USPS was not
| happy about it and it shouldn't be any different when you're
| abusing the postal system as a gag.
| kazinator wrote:
| Why stick to strictly under $78? Something that costs $2 with
| free shipping has a built in $0.78 discount if you consider its
| free postcard function.
| kazinator wrote:
| Has this person tried it?
|
| Doesn't Amazon shipping have to go to the billing address on the
| credit card?
|
| Being able to purchase on a credit card and have it sent anywhere
| makes it that much easier to use stolen credit cards.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Pretty sure if you buy something as a "gift" (which is what
| allows the inclusion of a message) then you can send it to a
| different address. I rarely use Amazon and never have used it
| to send a gift so could be wrong.
| umanwizard wrote:
| You can send things to other addresses regardless of whether
| it's a gift or not.
| kazinator wrote:
| Like so many awaited packages, it is neither here nor
| there. :)
| toast0 wrote:
| You have to provide the billing address for the card. But you
| don't have to ship there.
|
| Plenty of people ship to the office. I buy stuff for my parents
| from time to time. When I'm on vacation, I might ship to the
| hotel or a friend I'm visiting or ...
| AnssiH wrote:
| > Doesn't Amazon shipping have to go to the billing address on
| the credit card?
|
| No, I've had stuff shipped to plenty of addresses.
| kazinator wrote:
| It looks like the billing address restriction was a "thing"
| years ago, but is simply too impractical for modern day
| e-commerce. People want to do gifting, or get things
| delivered to temporary accomodations like vacation spots.
| They are relying on approaches like heuristics (sudden
| purchase for something expensive going to an unusual
| address), plus CVV verification to help ensure that the
| purchaser physically has the card (still allows theft, but
| adds a layer).
| astura wrote:
| No, it was never a "thing," "mark as gift" has always been
| an option on Amazon to send gifts to family and friends.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Doesn't Amazon shipping have to go to the billing address on
| the credit card?
|
| No and that would be crazy. I'm not aware of any e-commerce
| site that has a restriction like that.
|
| > Being able to purchase on a credit card and have it sent
| anywhere makes it that much easier to use stolen credit cards.
|
| Well, it's probably one fraud signal among many, but it's
| absolutely not generally prohibited. I've sent things from
| Amazon to other people (or to myself while staying in a hotel),
| and other people have sent things to me, many times.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| In Poland, OLX (basically equivalent eBay) commonly has
| promotional campaigns, where you can buy something from a select
| category with 1 PLN shipping to box machine (around $0.30).
|
| So people figured out, that you can abuse it to send anything to
| anyone in the country. Just create a fake listing for 1 PLN, let
| the receiver "buy" it (there is some extra service fee, but like
| $1) and there you go - probably the cheapest shipping possible,
| much cheaper than regular ~$5-7 box machine package.
| corentin88 wrote:
| Same thing in France with Vinted
| graup wrote:
| Last time I checked (a few years ago), it was cheaper to send
| letters and small packages from South Korea to Germany than from
| Germany to Germany. The delay was also not that big (maybe 1-2
| weeks instead of 3-5 days). I already envisioned an arbitrage
| business for this: a simple page where people upload their non-
| urgent letters as PDFs, and I just print and mail them from
| Korea.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| This is already a thing; political parties sending out their
| mass mailings from Poland to Norway.
| eru wrote:
| I'm surprised Poland is still cheap enough to make that
| worthwhile. (Compared to poorer EU countries you could send
| from.)
| blauditore wrote:
| I'm super surprised there is still free shipping for small
| things. In (some) other parts of the world, they will charge
| significant delivery furs for anything below $50 or so. It
| basically changed during Covid, and since every shop is now doing
| it, there's no competition on that.
| ck2 wrote:
| A more recent question I have is how Amazon is skipping DeMinimis
| fees which are now massive on 50 cent or $1 items from their
| "Amazon Haul" which come from overseas
|
| It arrives in a few weeks by Amazon's own carriers, not
| USPS/UPS/FedEx
|
| Who is paying the $80 DeMinimis fee on the $1 cable I got last
| week from China?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is it always $75 minimum, or is it alternatively 90% ad
| valorem?
| ck2 wrote:
| good luck figuring it out, the king constantly changes his
| mind
|
| note the last three sentences, $80, $160, $200 MININMUM
|
| > The duty was initially set at 30% of the value of the
| postal item, but on April 8, the duty was increased to 90% of
| the value of the postal item. On April 9, President Trump
| increased the de minimis duty to 120%.
|
| > Then, on May 12, the president issued an executive order
| lowering the duty rate for de minimis mail shipments to 54%
| effective May 14, 2025, at 12:01 a.m. ET.
|
| > The per postal item containing goods duty for low-value
| postal shipments is $100 as of May 2 (after being increased
| by executive orders dated April 8 and April 9) This fee
| increased to $200 on June 1, 2025.
|
| > There are new duty rates for international postal shipments
| in the executive order that eliminates de minimis for all
| countries, as described here. The specific duty for postal
| shipments:
|
| > $80 per item for countries with an effective IEEPA tariff
| rate of less than 16%.
|
| > $160 per item for countries with an effective IEEPA tariff
| rate between 16% and 25%.
|
| > $200 per item for countries with an effective IEEPA tariff
| rate above 25%.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > _You 're not only saving money._
|
| That's right, you're also cementing Amazon's control of the US
| economy. Both by doing more business there, and by spending time
| on that site which will lead to you doing even more of your
| business there. Not to mention having to be an "Amazon Prime"
| person to begin with.
|
| This may sound weird to some, but - you should really avoid using
| Amazon where possible.
| gowld wrote:
| Debunked in the first click:
|
| $0.25 - Lime - Amazon Fresh -FREE 2-hour delivery on orders over
| *$100*
|
| Other products have similar shipping restrictions, or the prices
| are higher than claimed.
|
| Also, most of the cheapest products (at least before tariff
| effects kicked in) don't allow customized messages that postcards
| allow, for obvious reasons.
| pruetj wrote:
| Funny seeing this. I've been working on a site to allow people to
| send a letter as cheaply and conveniently as possible. I actually
| think letters (physical) are a great way to make an impression,
| often times much more so than an email. Had never considered
| sending an actual object lol.
|
| At current scale (which is very small), the cheapest I can get it
| down to without losing money is $1.55 per letter (postage, paper,
| print, envelope, stripe fees, misc. hosting fees, etc.). Sadly, I
| have no way to compete with a $0.25 lime!
|
| If you're curious, https://mappymail.com
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| What if you also start providing the 0.25$ lime feature as well
| (by making use of the amazon prime itself as well?) xD?
| cellular wrote:
| "Include a note with this purchase" = Free postage for a
| letter!
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| At any scale your Amazon prime account would be shut down,
| you can't do account sharing in that way
| tempestn wrote:
| However, you could offer a service to existing Amazon prime
| users to help find these fun, cheap gift items. Maybe
| generate punny jokes people could include in the notes if
| they want. Join the Amazon affiliate program and earn a few
| cents from each...
| pruetj wrote:
| "Special offer: 80% off if you send a lime with a note
| attached instead of a letter!"
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| This might actually blow up on the internet lol, very
| innovative ngl. GP should try to do it if its legally
| allowable xD
| royskee wrote:
| That's pretty neat. It's a little oblique to your project, but
| you might be interested in the QSL bureau system
| https://www.iaru.org/on-the-air/qsl-bureau/
| focusedone wrote:
| All of these items appear to have received the HN hug of death.
| They're all showing as unavailable for me, who just wanted to
| drop a friendly lime hello to a friend across town.
| jervant wrote:
| There are also things on eBay with a starting price of less than
| a dollar with free shipping that never get bids. I "won" two
| auctions like this the other week for brand new USB-C cables,
| each of them costing me 13 cents shipped.
|
| I have no idea why sellers would do this with eBay fees and USPS
| small package shipping costing well over 13 cents.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Presumably they are inexperienced sellers who haven't learned
| about reserve prices?
|
| Now you're part of their education.
|
| Or... they are sophisticated and trying to get a ton of
| relatively inexpensive positive ratings before selling things
| that are actually expensive?
| qingcharles wrote:
| I did this on a mass scale. There are auction items that close
| at 1 cent with free shipping, so I signed up for the eBay API
| and wrote a bot to scrape all the auctions and bid one cent on
| them a minute before they closed.
|
| I ended up with an enormous overflowing mountain of packages
| every day for weeks. I might have gone crazier, but there was a
| serious bug in eBay's checkout. Try checking out with 400 items
| in your cart. It really gets upset.
|
| 99% of the packages were Chinese sellers but the packages all
| came from Mongolia, so there must be some sort of postal
| arbitrage going on there.
|
| It was all random stuff. Hairclips, 500 bicycle lamps. Dozens
| of tubes of ICs of every flavor. Crazy times.
| tempestn wrote:
| What did you do with all the random stuff?
| jackfranklyn wrote:
| The DoorDash pizza arbitrage comparison is apt. Both cases expose
| the same fundamental thing: venture-subsidised pricing creates
| artificial market conditions that clever people will exploit.
|
| What I find interesting is how long these windows stay open.
| You'd think someone at Stamps.com or UPS would notice the pricing
| anomaly, but large organisations are often too siloed. The team
| setting international rates probably doesn't talk to whoever
| monitors small parcel economics.
|
| The author mentions making a few hundred dollars - but the real
| question is scalability. At what volume does this become
| attractive enough for the postal services to close the loophole?
| There's probably a sweet spot between "not worth their attention"
| and "actually profitable."
| alexfoo wrote:
| The USPS have been on the receiving end of it themselves back
| in 1916 when someone mailed a building:
|
| https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_2022.2007.1
|
| https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/bank-of-ver...
| xoxxala wrote:
| People used to mail their babies for a while, but the USPS
| put a kibosh on that.
|
| https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/mailing-babies-postal-
| servi...
|
| Mailing a building is impressive!
| notherhack wrote:
| The lowest I found is two clip-on CAT5e cable termination jacks
| for $0.80 + 0.08 tax. Available in a rainbow of colors and
| shipped free to Seattle by Sunday if you order in the next 10
| hours. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T63ST97
|
| Or 3.5oz filet mignon flavor dog food for $0.84+tax with FREE two
| day delivery. https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07VBFLCKT
|
| Beat that!
| crazygringo wrote:
| I get the point, but this seems pretty out of date. Seems like it
| needs a [2025] (?) at least.
|
| A couple of these are still valid with Prime, but most of them
| are Amazon Fresh items ($9.95 service fee for orders under $50),
| or out of stock, or the price is now way more.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Tempted to start paying cash to mates to drive us to and from the
| airport. We have to pay for the ride either way - may as well put
| it in a friend's pocket.
|
| Tempted to vibecode a little tool to manage ride requests..
| dheera wrote:
| I mean, you just gave Amazon free advertising, which is kinda
| what they probably were looking for.
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| There's an even better way to send an actual letter for free.
|
| Simply switch the destination address on the envelope with the
| sender address, and drop it in the mailbox.
|
| When then post office returns the letter to sender because of
| insufficient postage it will have delivered the letter for you.
| lkbm wrote:
| Keep in mind that in the US this is illegal, and it's
| unreliable, since insufficient postage mail isn't necessarily
| returned. This is one of the oldest forms of mail fraud, and
| they're well aware of it.
| astura wrote:
| Mail fraud is illegal, dude.
| reader9274 wrote:
| What a waste
| Jill_the_Pill wrote:
| How much did they pay to have Prime? Have to add that in.
| autoexec wrote:
| Exactly. It'd probably take a while before you actually cost
| amazon more than what you'd already paid them in shipping plus
| the cost of all the <78 cent items you sent along with your
| messages.
|
| While screwing over amazon is noble enough, the end result of
| people doing this would only result in higher fees for prime
| and fewer items being eligible for "free" shipping. At the same
| time, you'd be depriving a very valuable public service of the
| few cents they ask to offset the cost of message delivery to
| anywhere in the nation. I'm sure they'd be happy to deliver
| something besides spam too.
| dawnerd wrote:
| This needs to be updated to check if an item is just local
| delivery. Most of the items are not available for delivery unless
| you live close to a fresh.
| ada1981 wrote:
| The lime is .25 but the s&h is 2.99 even with Prime; and tax too.
|
| Prime seems to only offer free shipping if it's over $25?
| yujzgzc wrote:
| It's not arbitrage until you can make money by selling something
| that costs you less than what you bought it for. What it is is
| bundled product (item + shipping) being priced lower than just
| one of the elements in the bundle (shipping) therefore making a
| case that one might as well always buy the bundle.
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah, "arbitrage" is not the right term here. This is just a
| complicated way to get a lower quality version of a service
| (sending a letter by mail) at a lower price.
| kmoser wrote:
| Theoretically you can offer a service that sends a physical
| message for less than the cost of a letter, and use this hack
| to do it profitably.
| keepamovin wrote:
| This is beautiful. Thank you for this! Beautifully execute,
| beautiful idea :)
| euroderf wrote:
| As an ex-pat, I'm really surprised by the pervasiveness of Amazon
| in the US. I guess if you wanted to quickly convert the US
| economy to market socialism, the first step might be to
| nationalize Amazon, fix the treatment of its workers, fix the
| IPR-related crap, electrify all of its transport, and then base
| the country's consumer economy (of non-perishables, for
| simplicity) around the resultant post-Amazonian logistics
| spiderweb. "Now with delivery drones on land, sea, and air!"
| stevage wrote:
| There are some of us going to great lengths to reduce the amount
| of plastic we consume, the crap we buy and then throw out,
| distances travelled on our behalf.
|
| And then there are these people. Sending a pregnancy test to
| their grandma. What a hoot!
| globular-toast wrote:
| Sometimes it's a curse to think. My friend group years ago
| started "Secret Santa" at Christmas and I quickly realised it
| wasn't about giving useful or even entertaining gifts, it was
| just about the joke of the item itself. The more useless or
| stupid the better! I didn't realise this and chose a gift I
| thought would be appreciated but they were super disappointed
| that they weren't part of the joke. I've boycotted Secret Santa
| ever since.
| jmmcd wrote:
| Jokes are one of the good parts of human existence, so -
| while I see your side of the story - there is another side.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Yes, that's why I said it's a curse.
| cameronehrlich wrote:
| Send a $0.01 check with your bank's Bill Pay feature, and write
| your message in the memo.
| tempestn wrote:
| As a Canadian, the free printing and mailing of paper checks
| anywhere in the country is perhaps the wildest US bank feature
| to me.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| At the time of writing, the cheapest item in the list is a $0.25
| lime.
|
| When I add that to my basket and go to checkout, the only
| available delivery option 'Fast - Tomorrow' costs $2.99.
|
| There _is_ a non-food item in the list, which costs $0.51+tax,
| i.e. $0.54 including free shipping.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I used to import a lot of stuff from the US to Norway. I lived
| all the way up in northern Norway, so parcels would take roughly
| 5 working days from Oslo to where I lived.
|
| Domestic overnight mail / express mail was prohibitively
| expensive, something equivalent to $150 for small items.
|
| However, if I ordered something via USPS International Express,
| those items would automatically be shipped as overnight / express
| mail once inside Norway, and handed to the Norwegian postal
| system. A parcel from New York to where I lived would take 2-3
| working days, and as a bonus, USPS Int'l Express only cost around
| $50 for the same size parcel!
|
| So while not the same type of arbitrage as OP posted about (where
| items become cheaper due to free shipping), I could save a lot of
| time and money.
|
| Maybe a more extreme example would be the ultra cheap shipping
| prices from China. You paid like $1 in shipping, which would have
| cost $10 if you bought the same service domestically.
|
| IIRC, the root of these practices go back many, many decades. And
| has a been a thorn on the side of modern shipping ever since
| Chinese e-commerce exploded.
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah in Australia I remember seeing a lot of small electronic
| items on eBay that were $1 shipped from Hong Kong or China. You
| literally could not post a letter within Australia for that
| price.
| tallanvor wrote:
| I'm guessing you quit after the small value toll exemption was
| removed?
| abcd_f wrote:
| > _ultra cheap shipping prices_
|
| It's either "ultra cheap shipping" or "ultra low shipping
| prices". Prices can't be cheap. /nitpick
| alibarber wrote:
| It's similar here in Finland - I can get stuff from DigiKey
| with all taxes paid and whatnot, free shipping over 50eur and
| it'll arrive by DHL in less than 48hrs from the States.
|
| If I order something locally, _maybe_ it 'll have made it to
| the departure sorting office in that time.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| This reminds me of Digikey International Shipping rates - free
| for orders over $60. Without the massive bulk discount rates they
| presumably get the DHL Express International/FedEx International
| Priority cost is far more than $60.
|
| https://www.digikey.com/en/help-support/delivery-information...
| amiga386 wrote:
| This is madness. Prime costs $139 per year. It may be a _sunk_
| cost for you, but it 's explicitly a cost.
|
| Try giving the USPS $139 per year and see what you can send with
| them.
| Surac wrote:
| this is a litte bit like the AI bubble works. I can't point to
| the thing with my finger but it feels wrong.
| ramonga wrote:
| This is why my AWS bill is so high?
| danesparza wrote:
| Yes, but Amazon Prime costs $140 a year.
|
| That means you would have to do these shenanigans roughly 1/3 of
| the year without ceasing before you even started to touch
| Amazon's profit margin for your account alone.
| non- wrote:
| If you have Prime it's probably already justified by your
| normal usage. So shenanigans are effectively free.
| nzealand wrote:
| Looks like they already closed this arbitrage opportunity?
|
| When I try to ship a lemon to a friend I get "There was a problem
| with some of the items in your order (see below for more
| information): Sorry, Lemon can't be shipped to the address you
| selected. Please remove the item or select another address."
|
| Pity, my friend needed a lemon, to know I was thinking of him.
|
| Edit: I can ship a lemon for $3 shipping if I select my friends
| address prior to adding the lemon to the cart, but with no option
| for a gift note that I can see.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-13 23:02 UTC)