Unprecedented cuts by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will slow first-class delivery next spring and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.
The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail later Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.According to the story, periodicals could take up to nine days to reach their destination through the mail. Which should pretty much destroy printed magazine subscriptions.
Maybe not all of them: If you subscribe to one of those Home and Garden magazines, it probably doesn't make much difference when you get them. But if you read something even a little time-sensitive—The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Time, etc.—you're running out of reasons to stick with print. Digital subscriptions will keep you up to date just fine.
1 comment:
Not sure I totally buy this. Sure for time sensitive magazines, but there is nothing really time sensitive about magazines. It tends to be more entertainment with recap in an easy to digest form. I take probably 10 magazines a month, and none of them are time sensitive, but all add value. Think Wired, Automobile, Parenting, and Popular Mechanics. Lots of life still left there, even with a longer delivery schedule. For those magazines, they'll just ship it a few days earlier to hit the month mark.
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