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Post Office Proposes Special Rate For Mailing DVDs
An anonymous reader writes "The United States Postal Service is seeking to implement a special postage rate for companies such as Netflix, GameFly and Blockbuster (PDF), which send DVDs to their customers and then receive them back. This proposal for special rates for two-way mailers of optical disks follows a protracted legal complaint from GameFly, which argued that Netflix was receiving special handling by the Postal Service while paying a cheaper postage rate."
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/03/the-cost-difference-in-mailing-netflx-vs-gamefly-all-of-gameflys-profits/
The reason GameFly pays more is because their mailers weigh more. Netflix keeps the mailer at 1 ounce and pays 44 cents each. GameFly's mailer is 2 ounces and they pay the two ounce price. The big giant clue in the linked article is that the USPS is considering changing the price of the 2 ounce mailer to the price of a 1 ounce mailer.
So the real story is that GameFly wants a discount with zero actual justification.
The packaging for GameFly costs more. Work it into your business model or reduce the packaging weight.
I don't do business with GameFly but if I did, I'd cancel. They actually have the nerve to pretend Netflix is getting some kind of special treatment while they are the ones seeking it.
There is nothing unfair about what the USPS is doing. The rest of us have to pay by the ounce for our mail.
Work Safe Porn
Because unlike every other business on the planet Dubya passed a law that says the USPS has to have the ENTIRE retirement plan, to the very last penny for every single employee, funded for something like 40 years?
It's worse than that. The law gives the USPS 10 years to come up with 100% of the money needed to fund all of its pension requirements for the next 75 years.
It's designed to destroy the USPS so Republican lawmakers can bemoan how government has once again failed to deliver. Except that they're the ones who have failed us.
Because then I couldn't send it back just by sticking it in my mailbox at the curb.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Yes, it makes sense to pay up your pension fund in advance...not 75 years in advance though! By paying into your pension fund 75 years in advance, you are funding the pensions of employees who haven't even been born yet. I can see requiring that the next 25 years worth of pensions are funded in advance but 75 years is insanity and for most businesses would be completely untenable.
Okay, here's the deal. You have until your 30th birthday to fully fund a retirement account that must last until you turn 95. If you can't, you must declare bankruptcy and lose everything. Sound fair?