[Kobold Press] State of Play: shipping changes threaten the hobby

[Marc Radle]

State of Play: shipping changes threaten the hobby.​

I told you lost month that I hate shipping. I still do, but I’m going to talk about it anyway, at length, because it is under a credible threat of privatization and increased costs …

 

[Daraniya]

this is why I only kickstart or buy PDFs... Don't need Dice, can print what I need...

 

[Reynard]

At the risk of leaning to heavily into politics: people who are negatively affected by these kinds of policy shifts absolutely need to contact their representatives and make their voices heard. Yes, even gamers.

 

[Marc Radle]

Absolutely!!

 

[Retreater]

I'm a librarian. One of the departments I oversee is Inter-library Loan (where we mail books to and receive books from other libraries). The cost of Media Mail has already ballooned to the point where we can barely offer this service.

 

[Marc Radle]

I love libraries!

 

[Bunch]

I have mixed feelings on this. The 1930s goal was to support the spread of information which the internet itself does much more efficiently than mailing objects around. Media rate is functionally a subsidy to book publishers that other shippers have to pay. When you talk about inter library loans that I totally support. I can see my fellow American asking "Why am I paying more to ship my dog food to support a random RPG publisher?".
It seems to me removing the printing of books and shifting to PDF only would be a large environmental positive. I strongly prefer physical books but the time may be coming for them to be a luxury item vs everyday one.

 

[aco175]

You mentioned the Post Road originated back in 1767 with Ben Franklin. I grew up on part of it outside Boston. There is not a ton of these markers left, but we have 3 in town.

The problem with shipping and rates that keep going up is unfortunately progress. I would love cheap shipping and would love if the postal system could compete with the other shippers, but would also like them to not need subsidies from the government/taxpayers.

Seems like mail is going the way of the blacksmith after the automobile. Kind of sucks, but things moved online with auto bill payments and email and such. Cut way down on the need and it is slowly dying.

 

[Committed Hero]

I'm afraid a postal service is one of those things, like vaccines and labor unions, that have worked for so long that people have forgotten how important they are.

 

[Belen]

I have mixed feelings on this. The 1930s goal was to support the spread of information which the internet itself does much more efficiently than mailing objects around. Media rate is functionally a subsidy to book publishers that other shippers have to pay. When you talk about inter library loans that I totally support. I can see my fellow American asking "Why am I paying more to ship my dog food to support a random RPG publisher?".
It seems to me removing the printing of books and shifting to PDF only would be a large environmental positive. I strongly prefer physical books but the time may be coming for them to be a luxury item vs everyday one.

Shifting to PDF only is not really any more environmentally friendly. You still have ongoing power and online storage costs for the material. Honestly, PDFs may be worse in the long term than physical books.

Media rate is not a subsidy. It is handled differently than other mail types and is often cached and shipped in bulk with slower delivery times.