Okay, I forgot to point something out here. I want to know how many businesses you frequent that YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE? how exactly do you propose a local startup gets a coupon into YOUR hands so maybe, just maybe, you might go down there and sample their wares? I know you don't think they oughta advertise, you've said it multiple ways.
Seriously, what are you doing on this forum?
Sigh.
Hypocrite, communist, democrat. Does the phrase “ad hominem” mean anything to you?
I never said businesses shouldn’t advertise. I have nothing against advertising per se, I only have a problem when it invades my home unwanted.
Have you ever heard of any of the following:
Word of mouth?
Angie’s list?
Newspapers?
Television?
Billboards?
Magazines?
Posted bills?
Radio?
Telephone directories?
Business signage?
The Internet?
All of the above are either voluntary, or exist on private property that voluntarily agrees to post the message. None of them come into my home thanks to the government without my consent.
There are plenty of methods to advertise without invading my home via government-sponsored force feeding. It doesn’t make me any of your slurs du jour because I don’t want a particular type that exists PURELY because the post office is a government-sponsored agency who can play fast and loose with costs and prices, something that I’m sure ol’ Ben Franklin didn’t envision when he came up with the idea, and something that the free market alternatives don’t support - gee, I wonder why?
Bulk mail rates didn’t even exist until the late 1920’s. “Direct Marketing” wasn’t a phrase until the late 1960s’s. Junk mail is a recent phenomenon that exists only because the USPS created it. The amount of junk mail is now over 40% of the USPS’s business and rising.
Yet another example of the government subsidizing something, and getting more of it. Real conservative idea there.
Here’s a crazy idea. I, as a consumer, know what I want. I am able to locate and patronize businesses that I need. It’s really not that hard. I can avail myself of any of the above advertising mechanisms just fine.
Voluntarily.
The free market is alive and well without the government providing yet another advertising avenue with prices some government reguatory agency pulls out of their arse.
I’m still amazed that you totally ignore the government-sponsored aspect of USPS, while calling me a Democrat, Communist, etc. Where do you think the price of a stamp comes from, which is then discounted for bulk mail rates? It isn’t the market. It’s the government. A bunch of bureaucrats make that decision and the whole system would fall apart if they were a real business.