‘Eventually it will just be a barcode, won’t it?’ Why Britain’s new stamps are causing outrage and upset
theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/04/eventuall...
theguardian.comPosted Jul 4, 2022, 7:53 AM UTC
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theguardian.comA couple of takeaways from the article:
All old stamps will no longer be accepted after Feb 2023. I find this most surprising as stamps have been one of those things that you could use after years. That they will have an end of life is a big change.
The barcode they use is a proprietary thing and not a standard. Which means you won't be able to scan it yourself. Why would they not just use a QR code which is universal?
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Agreed — given that a lot of stamps are sold in books of 10/12, seven months notice is not that long, unless you send letters pretty frequently.
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You'll be able to trade in non-barcoded stamps for new ones
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I bought 12 stamps in 2005, I still have some left. The only times I can think where I've needed to use them are government related things like sending back my driving license or V5C. Even birthday cards are done by Moonpig.
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They are still selling the old stamps as well
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You can scan them yourself on the Royal Mail app.
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Tbf, the original point still stands — why not use an open standard so we don't have to have a separate app for everyone's whim?
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Why do you want to scan a postage stamp as a customer/private citizen?
The barcode is there to help sort letters quicker - the sorting machines RM have been using were I’m in much need of an update to keep up with the amount of mail and parcels. Not any use for common folk.
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Don't want to be too blunt, but you are wrong.
"Correspondents will soon be able to share photo or video messages by linking digital content to their coded stamps."
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I'm sure they have their reasons - QR codes aren't always the best solution for optical coding. Their requirements likely differ from many uses of QR codes we've all seen. Density, speed of scanning, etc.
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And QR isn't great if you have partial codes, damaged codes etc. There are more data dense codes with better redundancy.
Also, what's the use in it being a standard QR when the string it gives you is meaningless without the Royal Mail app anyway?
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is there some thing that stamps are a form of money, like you can paste them onto a postal order and spend them - a quick google says they aren't legal tender though - they'll say you can make a postal order out of your old stamps perhaps.
BTW, I wouldn't expect my letter to get there if I put a load of old 1d stamps on it, but I could be wrong, maybe I could put 200 1d stamps on a letter, or similar.
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Current stamps valid until Feb next year? I bought 12 the other day as it was the smallest quantity available. At my current rate of using stamps that will take 20 years to get through.
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MLEEEERGH, it's DIFFERENT
WAAAAH, I don't like it!
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Society should be progressive and new tech should be adopted, but...there is something nice about stamps not being barcodes. As somone who moved abroad and has to scan a barcode for everything now, I'm telling ya, you'll be sad when picture postage stamps are gone.
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There are lots of stamp-sized stickers on sale that you can use to decorate an envelope if you want. My partner uses them all the time and they look great. Another bonus is that you can use one to stick down the 'join', in case you're worried it's gonna open up.
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Just a barcode sounds pretty great to me! Far more efficient.
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"outrage" ... right okay then!
Seriously though, I'm a big fan of Royal Mail as an institution, even if I think that it's being run terribly. It's wild to think that you can pay less than a quid to yeet a letter into a postbox at Saxa Vord, and it'll arrive in someone's mailbox on the Isles of Scilly within a week.
I've gotten on the Click and Drop train now though and it is much easier - surely an easy fix would just be to print a picture of a poxy stamp on the label?
I'm not entirely sure why stamps can't be reduced in scope but still made available for service users with accessibility issues or problems with IT access as a "plan B" to maintain a service for everyone.
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Can we replace the entire monarchy with a barcode please?
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...the idea of a stamp that has a QR code I can scan as tracking at first actually sounds pretty neat
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Just make it a QR code instead and make funky designs with it
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It's because some people have no real problems and nothing to do. Especially older people. It's because we've let people grow fat and lazy while others work like dogs.
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[removed]
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I’m so outraged and upset
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designed to stop counterfeiting and to enable the tracking of all letters to improve efficiency.
I'm sure that tracking benefit will be passed on the the customers, at no additional cost.
Totally.
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How awful. I'll actually be able to tell where in the pipeline they lost my mail in the future. Horrendous
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obviously they don't want to upset The Queen, but at some future time I imagine the King's head will shrink to allow a code to be on it
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I am now imagining postal workers hitting prince Charles around the head with mallets to decrease the size of his head.
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Sorry but anyone who gets outraged because stamps change needs to sort their priorities out.
We all have small things that annoy us and we have a little rant about. It's part of being human.
Shame on the gutter press for once again taking something akin to Twitter outrage and calling it 'news'.
If someone could develop an AI / script that carved this shit out of the internet, I would be very happy to use it.
Unfortunately we have the opposite
Yeah but I have to admit this is an odd one. If you really care a lot about stamps you may well be a stamp collector, meaning you must already have / have seen a beautiful variety of them. Snail mail is on the way out (even that term got coined in the '90s/'00s)... it only makes sense that stamps are.
Imagine living a life where your biggest problem is stamps. Fucking jokes.
Tbf, I'm not sure if anyone is saying it's their biggest problem.
Yeah but “so much of a problem for you that it’s made the news” sounds a bit shit.
this is a country that goes banana's over bendy ones.
I think you're aiming too high friend.
Perhaps they could visit the sorting office.
Media says people outraged about everything where really 99% of people dont give a shit
That is a misrepresentation. The remorphing of stamps is a highly symbolic and representative event that signals a much more impactful transition in our way of living. If you only see outrage over a minor change, then you are missing a large part of the picture.
Good sarcasm . . . or lunacy.
No, I was being relaxedly serious. Sorry if that sounded sarcastic or confrontational, that was not the intention.