I had this service for about two months and just cancelled it. My reasons were:
1. They weren't picking up my mail or delivering my magazines/packages with the consistency that they promised. This gradually eroded my trust the more times I found evidence of it happening.
2. I don't want to lose access to all my mail if they go under or get hacked. My only way to access it is via their apps and website, which could go away at any moment. To make matters worse, they shred all the physical copies after 30 days.
Those things plus the general lack of trust started making me very, very nervous as time went on.
I used to work for a company that did a similar thing to outbox, but differently. They took a picture of every piece of mail and then stored everything until customers placed shipping/scanning request via the web.
I was still there when Outbox first launched. It was deduced that Outbox would have it rough due to privacy/security problems. It was for that reason my former employer never launched an auto-scan product to compete.
Looking at their job postings, they have one person per city managing a team of people working probably close to minimum wage going door-to-door. These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by Outbox.
Let's say they pay a City Manager $100,000, or $125,000 after taxes, unemployment insurance, and benefits. An individual can take on 30 customers, is paid above minimum wage (let's say $15 after taxes, etc.), and works 7 hours a day (or 35 hours/week, making them part-time employees). That's roughly $30,000 per worker annually.
At $4.99 per month, none of the economics work. At 30 customers per part-time employee, the break even point is $100 per month per customer. At $4.99 per month each PTE needs to handle around 600 customers each to break even. 100 customers per PTE at $30/month also breaks even. But even 100 per PTE seems unrealistic.
Unless I'm missing something very basic, it just doesn't scale at $4.99 per month. At all. It's not even close.
After looking at their FAQ [1], yes they actually do collect mail. My initial thought was that they way to achieve this at a lower cost would be to redirect all mail direct to this company, who could then receive all customers' mail at one central office/warehouse which would lower staff costs massively.
I don't know if mail redirection is possible or easy to set-up in the US, but it is in the UK - although I just checked prices, and that alone would cost $6.40/month for each customer. [2]
> These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by Outbox.
If their FAQ is truthful, they will bring all mail back with them - as it says you won't get mail delivered unless you specifically request an item. Maybe they have clever machines to speed through the process of opening/scanning/filing? At the very least, this means drivers can just rush round collecting items, and the opening/scanning process can then be streamlined back at HQ.
This is probably one of the sites that you really need to read the terms of service https://www.outboxmail.com/terms to figure out what you are getting yourself into.
"If applicable, and unless you direct Outbox otherwise, Outbox may also, now or in the future, direct the third parties who send you mail and/or bills to send certain items of such mail and/or bills electronically to an email address provided to such third parties by Outbox specifically for that purpose and for that purpose only, in which case you authorize Outbox to do so in its sole discretion for as long as your account for the Service remains open."
It's not that different from a service I used to use a loooong time ago, called Paytrust (which got bought by Intuit). I changed all my billing addresses to an address they gave me. (Actually I think Paytrust might have updated the billing address on my behalf for most of the accounts.) Everything they received, they scanned in. The benefit was that they also marked it down with who the bill was from, how much it was, etc. then you could pay them all with just a few clicks. Also, they would do the same thing which was talk to the billers and convert it to an electronic system so that they didn't need to handle paper bills. You could also look at the scanned image of the document if you wanted to, and you could also order a CD at the end of the year with all your documents as well.
So this sounds like Paytrust minus the bill-paying, but with a stronger emphasis on getting rid of and letting you easily view all your mail. (Edit after looking at their site some more: They also will send you the original item if you want it... something that doesn't really apply as much to bills. Although Paytrust did sometimes forward things to me, like a new membership card or something.)
The first is that the premise is trivial at best and detrimental at worst. Let's evaluate my current mail situation. Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is preferable to sort though my mail digitally. It is already trivial to remove my mail, quickly glance through it, and toss the junk mail into the recycling bin in my foyer. Being able to do this via a web interface means nothing to me, and certainly isn't worth my money. In fact, I would argue that this worsens my mail-reading experience inasmuch as it creates a level of abstraction that increases the time necessary to deliver the mail I do care about, like The New Yorker. Our mail system is already a travesty. I'm certainly not going to do anything to make it even slower.
The second issue, as mentioned before, is trust. I simply don't trust a startup to open my mail.
> Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is preferable to sort though my mail digitally.
Well, wait until you have a power bill, water bill, gas bill, garbage bill, phone bill, cable bill, mortgage, credit card bills, car note, doctor's bills, lab results, dentist's bills, vet bills, student loan bills, newsletters from your kids' schools, bank statements, ...
Some of those need a response, some don't because you've already set up automatic bill payment, some are information you want and can then discard, some are things you need to keep for your records.
After clicking through a lot of FAQ entries, I found this under "I'm moving": "If you are moving within Austin, TX, we'd love to keep you as a customer." So, I guess they're just in Austin. It took a lot of work to figure that out, though. :/
Obligatory snark: That intro video had a serious case of vocal fry.
While looking at all this, I was mostly considering the potential privacy implications. Then again, with the amount of stuff we push online these days, it's seems somewhat comical to even consider it. That alone is weird.
Then I read up on it and realized that secrecy of correspondence isn't really that much of an established principle internationally as I have been accustomed to, living in Germany. (It seems like France even had the death penalty on it for a while.)
Still - Paying a service 5 bucks a month to invade your privacy* just seems a little more real when it is about actual stuff, not just things that are bits and bytes anyways.
*And don't tell me it won't happen. It will always happen. Somebody other than you will have or get access to that data.
Any reason your snark has to be obligatory? Especially since it's about a pedantic issue with the video about the service rather than the service itself?
The thing is, you've actually got something interesting to say -- we should certainly consider the privacy implications, and whether this could change limits on government intrusion into your correspondence -- but you buried the lead and presented it in a negative way for no clear reason other than you were feeling like being snarky toward someone's hard work.
Tired of pretentiously named apps. Mailbox, and now Outbox.
Yes, I get it that Apple Computer shortened their name to Apple, and that it's cool to be like Apple. But that isn't OK, and it doesn't make it OK for your startup. It's pillaging of the English language. At least when I say apple, context may help people to recognize when I mean the fruit and when I mean the tech company. With Outbox and Mailbox the context is less likely to provide the needed hint, because the lowercase terms and the uppercase terms in the same domain: email.
Adding to the pretense is the fact that they don't even own "{{product_name}}.com". Instead it's "{{product_name}}mail.com" or "{{product_name}}app.com".
You're kidding, right? Aptly-named products that are popular in the everyday vernacular are pretentious?
In this day and age, it's impossible to own the .com for anything but asdjhlsadnklsajkdaskljjkldas.com without paying through the nose for these domains (see Color).
Simply-named descriptive apps are a step in the right direction.
It takes me only ~30 seconds per day to filter mail manually & toss 90%+ into the recycling. That's not a big problem needing solving.
And, they don't explain how they "pickup" securely. Do I need to be home? Then you've lost all time savings, as I have to answer the door to do the transaction with you.
If I don't have to be home, then how can you get into my mailbox securely?
If the USPS would implement something like this in a reliable fashion...well.. it would eventually end them.. but in the interim I would be so happy. Imagine you sign up to have every one of your standard size envelopes opened / scanned automatically. Magazines and Birthday cards (weird sizes) would still come through. It would be terrific. I'd pay 5-10$ per month to have all of my tax things, pay stubs, financial product offer letters, invoices, all scanned and searchable, and they would have to deliver so much less physical mail.
However for a startup to try to replicate the multibillion dollar infrastructure that is already in place there is silly, and the USPS won't do it because of federal laws that would need to change about opening mail.
1. Setup a centralized warehouse, where I can forward my mail to. Just send the mail to y'all instead of you coming to get it at my mailbox. Also, makes it available to a wider customer base. That's just silly easy.
2. Make all of the information in my account downloadable for back-up and privacy control reasons. Makes me, the customer, feel more secure and trusting.
3. Up your monthly to $10 or even $14, $4.99 says you're not serious about sticking around long. Especially when you combine that price with the amount of overhead you have taken on. I'd buy it in a heart beat at $10 with you centralizing your workforce to an inexpensive one-location solution.
This is a great idea, just needs efficiency implemented more.
I've been using it for several months in SF and it's pretty great. iPhone app and pretty website let me see my mail from anywhere. They pickup my mail Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Coolest thing to me being able to mark magazines or letters as spam and they will send unsubscribe messages for me.
Some flaws are how they handle anything more complex than just picking up mail addressed to you. Living in a rental apartment, I get plenty of previous residents that they ignore; I love would love to be able to get them to unsubscribe me from all mail that isn't addressed to me. But that gets more complex with my roommate, who doesn't use the service.
Otherwise, for $5/month, I like not having to check my mailbox and I haven't had any issues.
[+] [-] tfe|13 years ago|reply
1. They weren't picking up my mail or delivering my magazines/packages with the consistency that they promised. This gradually eroded my trust the more times I found evidence of it happening.
2. I don't want to lose access to all my mail if they go under or get hacked. My only way to access it is via their apps and website, which could go away at any moment. To make matters worse, they shred all the physical copies after 30 days.
Those things plus the general lack of trust started making me very, very nervous as time went on.
Edit: more details
[+] [-] msandford|13 years ago|reply
I was still there when Outbox first launched. It was deduced that Outbox would have it rough due to privacy/security problems. It was for that reason my former employer never launched an auto-scan product to compete.
It looks like a smart move, even today.
[+] [-] mratzloff|13 years ago|reply
2. Scan each page of mail, including envelopes
3. Post scans online
4. Return requested physical mail
5. Charge $4.99 for this service
6. ...
7. Profit?
Looking at their job postings, they have one person per city managing a team of people working probably close to minimum wage going door-to-door. These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by Outbox.
Let's say they pay a City Manager $100,000, or $125,000 after taxes, unemployment insurance, and benefits. An individual can take on 30 customers, is paid above minimum wage (let's say $15 after taxes, etc.), and works 7 hours a day (or 35 hours/week, making them part-time employees). That's roughly $30,000 per worker annually.
At $4.99 per month, none of the economics work. At 30 customers per part-time employee, the break even point is $100 per month per customer. At $4.99 per month each PTE needs to handle around 600 customers each to break even. 100 customers per PTE at $30/month also breaks even. But even 100 per PTE seems unrealistic.
Unless I'm missing something very basic, it just doesn't scale at $4.99 per month. At all. It's not even close.
[+] [-] corin_|13 years ago|reply
I don't know if mail redirection is possible or easy to set-up in the US, but it is in the UK - although I just checked prices, and that alone would cost $6.40/month for each customer. [2]
> These people most likely scan mail at their homes using a scanner provided by Outbox.
If their FAQ is truthful, they will bring all mail back with them - as it says you won't get mail delivered unless you specifically request an item. Maybe they have clever machines to speed through the process of opening/scanning/filing? At the very least, this means drivers can just rush round collecting items, and the opening/scanning process can then be streamlined back at HQ.
[1] http://help.outboxmail.com/customer/portal/articles/984656-h...
[2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGsrC9z...
[+] [-] bobwaycott|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeformed|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|13 years ago|reply
"If applicable, and unless you direct Outbox otherwise, Outbox may also, now or in the future, direct the third parties who send you mail and/or bills to send certain items of such mail and/or bills electronically to an email address provided to such third parties by Outbox specifically for that purpose and for that purpose only, in which case you authorize Outbox to do so in its sole discretion for as long as your account for the Service remains open."
[+] [-] drivers99|13 years ago|reply
So this sounds like Paytrust minus the bill-paying, but with a stronger emphasis on getting rid of and letting you easily view all your mail. (Edit after looking at their site some more: They also will send you the original item if you want it... something that doesn't really apply as much to bills. Although Paytrust did sometimes forward things to me, like a new membership card or something.)
[+] [-] ruswick|13 years ago|reply
The first is that the premise is trivial at best and detrimental at worst. Let's evaluate my current mail situation. Considering that I'm a junior in high school, I receive a substantial amount of college-related junk mail (between five and ten pieces per day), in addition to perhaps three other items. I don't understand why it is preferable to sort though my mail digitally. It is already trivial to remove my mail, quickly glance through it, and toss the junk mail into the recycling bin in my foyer. Being able to do this via a web interface means nothing to me, and certainly isn't worth my money. In fact, I would argue that this worsens my mail-reading experience inasmuch as it creates a level of abstraction that increases the time necessary to deliver the mail I do care about, like The New Yorker. Our mail system is already a travesty. I'm certainly not going to do anything to make it even slower.
The second issue, as mentioned before, is trust. I simply don't trust a startup to open my mail.
[+] [-] munificent|13 years ago|reply
Well, wait until you have a power bill, water bill, gas bill, garbage bill, phone bill, cable bill, mortgage, credit card bills, car note, doctor's bills, lab results, dentist's bills, vet bills, student loan bills, newsletters from your kids' schools, bank statements, ...
Some of those need a response, some don't because you've already set up automatic bill payment, some are information you want and can then discard, some are things you need to keep for your records.
[+] [-] gbog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cfinke|13 years ago|reply
Elaborate?
[+] [-] pionar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gala8y|13 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5821421
So, now, you can ping yourself. Internet complete.
[+] [-] notjustanymike|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmfrk|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kvee|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simmons|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skore|13 years ago|reply
While looking at all this, I was mostly considering the potential privacy implications. Then again, with the amount of stuff we push online these days, it's seems somewhat comical to even consider it. That alone is weird.
Then I read up on it and realized that secrecy of correspondence isn't really that much of an established principle internationally as I have been accustomed to, living in Germany. (It seems like France even had the death penalty on it for a while.)
Still - Paying a service 5 bucks a month to invade your privacy* just seems a little more real when it is about actual stuff, not just things that are bits and bytes anyways.
*And don't tell me it won't happen. It will always happen. Somebody other than you will have or get access to that data.
[+] [-] Avshalom|13 years ago|reply
Hell that's the sales pitch: give us your keys so we can steal your mail.
Like I get the idea and it's solid, but christ that's a level of trust I don't have.
Also snark: It's called creaky voice, "vocal fry" is what people call it when they want to wring their hands about kids-these-days
[+] [-] aasarava|13 years ago|reply
The thing is, you've actually got something interesting to say -- we should certainly consider the privacy implications, and whether this could change limits on government intrusion into your correspondence -- but you buried the lead and presented it in a negative way for no clear reason other than you were feeling like being snarky toward someone's hard work.
[+] [-] benatkin|13 years ago|reply
Yes, I get it that Apple Computer shortened their name to Apple, and that it's cool to be like Apple. But that isn't OK, and it doesn't make it OK for your startup. It's pillaging of the English language. At least when I say apple, context may help people to recognize when I mean the fruit and when I mean the tech company. With Outbox and Mailbox the context is less likely to provide the needed hint, because the lowercase terms and the uppercase terms in the same domain: email.
Adding to the pretense is the fact that they don't even own "{{product_name}}.com". Instead it's "{{product_name}}mail.com" or "{{product_name}}app.com".
[+] [-] joelandren|13 years ago|reply
In this day and age, it's impossible to own the .com for anything but asdjhlsadnklsajkdaskljjkldas.com without paying through the nose for these domains (see Color).
Simply-named descriptive apps are a step in the right direction.
[+] [-] n9com|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thematt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hamxiaoz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pidge|13 years ago|reply
"Create an account and send us a picture of your mailbox key (if you have one) so we can make a secure copy."
[+] [-] JungleGymSam|13 years ago|reply
1. There's no way I trust this company or its employees to act appropriately with my mail 100% of the time.
2. I'd be afraid of missing something important due to an unknown delay in the scanning process.
3. Their database will get cracked, and customer information leaked, when they get big enough to be a worthwhile target. It's only a matter of time.
[+] [-] johnvschmitt|13 years ago|reply
And, they don't explain how they "pickup" securely. Do I need to be home? Then you've lost all time savings, as I have to answer the door to do the transaction with you.
If I don't have to be home, then how can you get into my mailbox securely?
[+] [-] nthj|13 years ago|reply
That about sums it up.
Thanks, Outbox.
[+] [-] cjc1083|13 years ago|reply
However for a startup to try to replicate the multibillion dollar infrastructure that is already in place there is silly, and the USPS won't do it because of federal laws that would need to change about opening mail.
Of course it would make the NSA happy as well ;)
[+] [-] slovette|13 years ago|reply
1. Setup a centralized warehouse, where I can forward my mail to. Just send the mail to y'all instead of you coming to get it at my mailbox. Also, makes it available to a wider customer base. That's just silly easy.
2. Make all of the information in my account downloadable for back-up and privacy control reasons. Makes me, the customer, feel more secure and trusting.
3. Up your monthly to $10 or even $14, $4.99 says you're not serious about sticking around long. Especially when you combine that price with the amount of overhead you have taken on. I'd buy it in a heart beat at $10 with you centralizing your workforce to an inexpensive one-location solution.
This is a great idea, just needs efficiency implemented more.
Edit: Just fixed a couple things.
[+] [-] askedrelic|13 years ago|reply
Some flaws are how they handle anything more complex than just picking up mail addressed to you. Living in a rental apartment, I get plenty of previous residents that they ignore; I love would love to be able to get them to unsubscribe me from all mail that isn't addressed to me. But that gets more complex with my roommate, who doesn't use the service.
Otherwise, for $5/month, I like not having to check my mailbox and I haven't had any issues.
[+] [-] comex|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] callahad|13 years ago|reply
(https://www.outboxmail.com/learn/privacy)
[+] [-] nwh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aarondf|13 years ago|reply
Totally makes sense!
Although SHA-512 != encryption, so... I'm lost again.
[+] [-] chamblin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thoughtpalette|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruswick|13 years ago|reply