The Future of Stamps

New submitter Kkloe writes: Wired is running a profile of a gadget called Signet, which is trying to bring postage stamps into the age of high technology. Quoting: "At its core, it is a digital stamp and an app. If you want to send a parcel, you'd simply stamp it with a device that uses a laser to etch it with your name and a unique identifying pattern. After that, the USPS would pick up your package; from there, the app would prompt you to provide the name of the person you're trying to reach." I'm curious whether such a finely-detailed etching can even survive a journey. How far can you expect it to travel before all the handling and sorting make the mark unreadable to the sorting machines in the delivery office? Then you'd have to worry the post office would mark it as a fraudulent stamp (as someone has to pay for the shipping in some way) and either return it or throw it away.

Comments

Shipping companies....

[neoritter]

Shipping companies already do similar things with bar codes etc. So to the question in the summary, yes it should be fine. To the general idea, why? What's wrong with a QR code or a bar code?

Re:Shipping companies....

[gurps_npc]

1) This is prettier and cooler.

2) Easier to use for one off jobs, where you have one letter. 3) They envision ending/greatly reducing the physical stamp program. This will piss off the collectors a lot.

4) They get paid for it, rather than the company that makes the QR codes etc.

Basically, I don't think it has enough advantages to catch on somewhere where they already have stamps. But ISIL might want it for their new country, I bet they want to replace Syria's and Iraq's old postal system.

Re:Shipping companies....

[Charliemopps]

yes, this is a solution in search of a problem.

What future?

[jdkc4d]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel the future of stamps is going to be a world that doesn't use stamps. How much mail do you really send that you are still buying stamps? I realize lots of businesses still send things out usps, but they are probably printing their own postage at this point anyway and not using actual stamps.

Re:What future?

[lgw]

There are still bills I pay with paper. (Some companies still charge for the "privilege" of paying online, which pisses me off even though the amount doesn't matter.)

I occasionally deposit checks via mail. Even if I trusted my phone enough to put banking software on it (which would be a silly thing to do), that only works for some kinds of checks.

Some companies respond to customer complaints via paper mail much better than they do via the net.

Sometimes I send checks to family members who aren't technologically sophisticated enough for there to be another way.

Maybe all of those reasons will disappear eventually, but I doubt that will be in my lifetime. It's also worth remembering that you can still send some mail anonymously - frankly, I'm surprised you still can, as there's nothing a totalitarian state hates more than anonymous communication.

Re:What future?

[innocent_white_lamb]

I used to mail cheques to the utility companies and credit card companies and whatnot, but then I discovered that I can pay all of those bills at the bank down the street. They don't charge me anything for taking those payments, either, so it's definitely cheaper than paying for a stamp, an envelope, and a cheque. And it's right down the street so I can walk in, pay cash and get a stamped receipt on the spot.

I'm sure someone is paying them for the service of taking my money and sending it on like that but that someone isn't me, so I'm pretty happy about that. It saves a lot of stamps, and cheques.

Re:What future?

[Kjella]

This. Actual stamps is mostly a consumer thing, I just checked our commercial postal service and they recommend a "stamping" machine if you send more than 40 letters/week where you charge it up like a prepaid cell phone, same thing for packages except there they normally print to labels they slap on the package. And for the big companies you get bulk pre-printed envelopes with logo that are collected at your place of business and charged to your corporate account, we have those at work. The potential for abuse is small since you can't drop them off at a regular mailbox and it'd be obvious who you're using to pay for your postage. A lot of the consumer-to-business mail is prepaid and rolled into the cost of business too, the few times I use stamps is to other people but most of that is replaced by email since you don't need a formal signature on anything. I guess there's the odd package, but if it's too big to fit a mail box you're going to the post office anyway.

Re:What future?

[mendax]

I doubt it, at least not anytime in the near future. Stamps do have some interesting and necessary purposes for existence.

I write people in prisons. While some prisons and jails have e-mail systems in place through which you can write an inmate and, in some cases, the inmate can write back (Federal prisons being the best example of this) these are usually funded by a "tax" paid by the inmates in some way. For those inmates who don't want to use such services or cannot (California prisoners being one in that they don't have access to such systems), U.S. mail and stamped envelops are the only way to go. So, as long prisons don't have some other inexpensive way for inmates to communicate with those on the other side of the razor wire, stamps are here to stay.

Incidentally, because I write to prisoners I learn all sorts of things about life there. Since prisoners are not allowed to carry money, they use a barter system to buy and sell things. There are four kinds of currency in jails and prisons in the U.S: ramen noodle soups, instant coffee wrapped up in sandwich wrap, cigarettes (if they are permitted), and postage stamps. Think of the economic depression that would occur in the prison economy if stamps disappeared!

Pitney Bowes

[tomhath]

What does this provide that a postage meter doesn't? He also seems to think the USPS should spend billions retooling how they sort mail.

Re:Pitney Bowes

[Ichijo]

What does this provide that a postage meter doesn't?

The ability to keep your mailing address when you move, similar to the way third party webmail services let you keep your e-mail address when you change ISPs, or the way VoIP services let you keep your phone number when you move, or the way DNS lets you keep your URLs the same when you change web hosts.

FTFA:

When Martin Cooper invented the cellphone at Motorola in 1971, his idea began with the simple insight that telephones were attached to places. They were rooted at a home or desk, for exampleâ"and it was simply by coincidence or mutual agreement that the right person was at that location when the call was placed. The cellphone was meant to make telephones about reaching people, not places.

Complete waste

[Russ1642]

Why re-invent the printer just to stamp a package? All of the major shipping companies let you print out a shipping label already. As for the other stuff, such as having the shipping company look up an address, that can all be done with software provided there's enough incentive to develop it.

Re:Give it another decade - the problem will solve

[Jarik C-Bol]

Just because you don't send physical objects anymore does not mean everyone else does not. The cynical part of me sort of thought this was going to be sponsored by the USPS, as another last ditch attempt to get people to mail more things, to stave off its eventual demise. While its true that the Postal Service is dwindling to store flyers and political ads in the digital age, I dread the idea of them shutting down, simply because when it comes right down to it, If i need to send something, they have the quickest, simplest, and most user friendly meatspace interface of all the carriers. (there is no FedEx office in my town, and the UPS office is open to customers for literally 1 hour in the afternoon).
Apparently, the objective these people seem to have is to actually bring back sending things to one another, which they claim is sort of a cultural touchstone we have lost in the digital age. To quote them "when was the last time you received something someone else actually touched?"
Sure, its sort of hippy-dippy, but there is sort of a visceral enjoyment that comes from receiving a physical package or letter, and their goal is to make sending things supremely simple. I actually like the idea myself, but I doubt that it will get implemented without either starting their own carrier, or a deep partnership with one of the private carriers. I suspect The USPS is to mired in political crap to adopt this.

This is a really useless idea

[g1powermac]

Ok, for a bit of reference, I was a rural mail carrier for awhile. And from being a carrier and talking with fellow carriers after being one I can tell you people don't really send much first class mail anymore. The USPS is now basically converting into the last mile run carrier of packages, both originating from their system and both Fedex and UPS's systems. The local post office I've worked at has at times not been able to handle the sheer volume increase of packages. Now, if people want to ship packages, they can already print their own postage off their computers so this device does nothing for that (and there's plenty of bulk label creation systems for larger shippers which is what I do now). The other fairly large user of the USPS is advertisers using bulk mail rates and they won't use a device like this since they already have permits. So I see little use for this.

Re:Give it another decade - the problem will solve

[BarbaraHudson]

Maybe you could actually read the article again:

The envelope or package that’s been sitting there for days, unsent.

The post office already allowed people to print up their own custom stamps for an extra fee. It bombed.

And there's no way that anyone is going to buy a laser etcher when mailing things is becoming obsolete.

The Canadian government has already told people that mailing payments will cease over the next few years.

Additionally, home delivery of the mail is being ended to most of the population. It's already stopped for 1/3 of the population, and the other 3rd that don't live in apartment buildings will be stopped over the next few years. Why the exception for apartment buildings? Because it saves Canada Post the cost of building and maintaining public mailbox collection stands.

There are plenty of competitors for parcel delivery - Canada Post already owns one of them - Purolator Courier.

The only things I've mailed this decade are registered mail - which requires a visit to a postal substation anyway. The post office is going to be dead before BSD.

RoyalMail solved problem

[PeteFox]

The Royal Mail in the UK has been selling stamps online for some years. Tell then the weight/size of your letter or parcel, pay the postage cost and you can print an address label with bar code. The only thing is you generally have to post it within a couple of days.

Re:No postmark date?

[ShanghaiBill]

The main problem with electronic stamp creation currently is the lack of a postmark date stamp from the postal service.

99.9% of the mail I receive is either metered or printed with a bulk permit. Neither of these is postmarked by the postal service.

That means that the item can be lost for any length of time without any accountability, just lost in the machine.

How does a postmark provide accountability? If you want to track the package or certify delivery, that is an extra charge, and an extra sticker.

Anyway, I read TFA, and I still don't understand what "problem" they are trying to solve. Normal stamps seem to work pretty well for me, for the two or three times a year that I mail a letter.

Re:Is there a fake stamp blackmarket?

[BarbaraHudson]

The last time a TV show mailed 100 letters with obviously fake stamps, 7 got through. Considering the cost of envelopes, paper, and printing, not a very good ROI.