I've long wanted to nail up my mailbox. Nothing good comes through snail mail - things I really want come by email, or Tweet, or SMS, or get delivered in boxes that won't fit through the thing anyway. Through my mailbox comes junk mail, communications from that criminal protection racquet still masquerading as an elected government and letters from companies who have willfully ignored my perfectly clear instruction to conduct all of our business online.
Simply nailing up the mailbox might be a bit of a problem if a I get a summons or jury duty, I know. So I am now toying with another solution - mounting a scanner where the letterbox used to be. I am not refusing to receive your communications per se - I am merely transferring the cost of opening the envelope, unfolding the letter and glancing at it before carrying away that envelope and tossing in the recycling to you, the sender. Which, frankly, if you're so damned keen to communicate with me shouldn't be that much of a problem. The immediate time cost will be met by the agents of the delivery company (normally Royal Mail, so the postman); that cost of bothering me will go up and be passed on (good); and if people really want to bother me that much (the goverment insists it must be able to) they can do so. And I can simply glance at a daily email and respond to whichever messages I think are worth the trouble.
I'm also betting that Google is working on a cheap scanner that it will start giving away to people so that it can replace the mail system, but like so many things Google might be working on they could well have better things to do really.
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