How the US Post Office killed innovative digital mail because it disrupted junk mailers
Derek Khanna has yet another story of how politicians and incumbents have killed off an innovative service. Though, amazingly, unlike in other cases where the killing is hidden behind totally bogus claims of “public safety” or “consumer choice,” this time the politicians appeared to be very direct in admitting that they wanted the service dead because it upset incumbents. It’s the story of Outbox, a service that would take all of your snail mail and digitize it (and, in the process, dump and unsubscribe you from all that junk mail). It was created by two former Congressional staffers who had seen how nice a mail digitization system could be in Congress. People who used Outbox loved it. All your mail digitized in an easy to review manner — while also removing all the junk mail you hated? It was a great service.
But, the Postmaster General basically did everything possible to kill it. You really should read the full story, but it involves the Postmaster General calling Outbox’s founders into his office. They thought that it might be about an opportunity to work together to provide the American public a much better service. But it wasn’t:
