Everybody just assumes they're the only thing hitting your inbox, like I don't also have "engagement" messages from 3 other stores I bought shit from two years back, plus PG&E trying to convince me to install a meter that can turn off my A/C remotely, plus Nextdoor trying to update me because somebody thinks they heard a gunshot...
> Everybody just assumes they're the only thing hitting your inbox
They know your inbox has 100s of competing senders and their message could get lost, that's why they spam. A large number of people don't curate their inbox, never unsubscribe and just make do reading 20% of their messages.
I actually really enjoy getting this sequence of emails but I use Gmail’s auto categorization so it just goes in the “Updates” folder and gets auto-forwarded to my claw-like so it’s not super interrupty. I prefer to have the full trace on my side rather than on the provider side because their site might go down and so on.
I can see why people get annoyed. It’s just the alternative that I really dislike.
This way I can do all analysis on my own side or search for status on my side. I prefer to own the data and have it pushed in a timely manner.
In contrast I’m a fan of the overeager messages for actual updates like these presented.
It is just when after said delivery that I then end up on a mailing list where I get sent something seemingly daily from a single vendor that I’m less pleased.
Same here. Back in 1999 buying something of a yahoo market website was a crapshoot and you didn’t know what was going on till you got it. I have no issue with overzealous updates. But after that; go away! I know you exist.
It's honestly one of his worst videos, but Jon Bois has quite thoroughly documented how many mattresses they tried to sell him as a result of him buying a mattress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36R8xlhe1U
I strongly suspect that "Do not send me marketing emails" at checkout time ACTUALLY means "Wait 6 months before sending me marketing emails, when I might plausibly forget that I checked this box", because I always do my best to opt out of mailing lists and I always seem to start getting stuff anyway 6-12 months after making a purchase. The Silicon Valley model of consent strikes again.
All I need when I buy something online is the shipping tracking number. That's it. I don't need an invoice. What am I going to do with that, print it out and stare at it? I don't need constant tracking updates. I can get these myself with the tracking number. I don't need to know it was delivered (again, tracking number, and I can also just look on the porch with my eyeballs). I don't need any of the other sales-spam that always seems to accompany these orders. An online merchant shouldn't even need my E-mail address. I should be able to click "buy" and the next page shows me the tracking number. That's the only relationship I want with you!
An invoice/receipt is often necessary for booking purposes, reimbursements, taxes, etc. But to your point, just put it in the same email as the tracking number and move on.
Apple hide my email was a great solution to this, I feel like we need a proper open source alternative. Basically a relay inbox that is ephemeral and you can discard once you’re done.
I've internalized the delete shortcut in gmail and configured one of the swipe directions in the app to be delete. For a long time, I archived every email, but there's so much crap like this now to wade through.
I also discovered that a busy local mailing list was sending images as attachments that counted against my quota, so even more incentive to delete instead of archive.
Actually, four emails, not ten. Author writes as if it’s some conspiracy of sellers and shipping companies to maximise the number of emails. Each sends with any excuse they have.
The email is treated as a drop box of transactional notes that business sends to customers inbox so customer can always find that info if they would have a need.
It’s not frivolous sending that we need to fix but some standard of “receipt” folders, like Gmail auto folders in half-assed way. So these emails bypass inbox directly to special folder. And it should have a standard name so customer service can say “look in your Receipts folder”.
And Two “We received your order” is unnecessary, as well as “create account”. But if they send those it must be working? Or they send even is only handful of people click on them?
Never give out your email. Just hand out proxy addresses. Have a couple in your wallet\phone casing for when you need to give one right away without time to generate it.
No spam. Or if you get some, one click to stop receiving mail from a specific proxy.
Takes some using to, and some work each time you give out an email address. But so does sifting through a ton of spam, because you didn't care enough to only give out a proxy address.
I've been using Proton Mail and iOS (through iCloud+) for this. Almost every purchase online goes through a proxy, and once the item is delivered, the email deleted.
This has a side benefit of being able to sign up to the popup modals for like, 10-20% off a first purchase.
Some sites do not parse the emails correctly though (if they contain periods, etc) and it's also hard to order track.
I find it's worth the trouble to have a relatively quiet inbox.
The worst abusers are the ones that mix vital emails with marketing and fluff. In the US you have to deal with the Social Security Administration your entire adult life. You need to deal with them while paying into the program during the working years and also while cashing out in retirement. So you can't just ignore communications with them, but yet most emails are fluff like holiday greetings, reminders not to be scammed (which are repeats of the same advice they gave in all previous emails).
Banks also do this, but they at least use the same subject lines that I can auto-filter.
I do this. But I hit a wall with shopify. They only allow 5 email addresses to be bound to an account and only one account to one phone number. So now I cannot get tracking information from about a dozen online stores that at some point or another switched to shopify after I already made a custom email for them
You'd love AliExpress. There's probably 20-25 emails per order as there are so many tracking steps. But I like it, just automatically move them to a folder.
Is there a technical limitation why these never seem to be grouped into a thread? I generally appreciate the updates on my package, but I also value a tidy inbox.
i am no fan of spam. but i am totally fine (and expect, really) to receive email #s 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 on this 10 point list.
- 1 confirms my order was received, and im not left thinking i ordered something when it wasnt processed.
- 3, 4, 6, 7 are all good for ensuring my order didnt get lost in the process and lets me schedule my day if needed.
- proof of delivery (8) is good for records, disputes, or just knowing that i should pop over to my house on lunch so the item isnt sitting outside all day.
however, i do use my own domain and unique addresses per store (e.g. "walmart@example.com" if i need a walmart account for whatever reason), so that if/when companies start doing the "we miss you", "please rate us", "seriously, please rate us, you havent yet :(" or whatever, i can immediately bin it.
Maybe for you it’s a problem, I personally know people that if they don’t get these emails they start calling support services to know where’s the order or what’s the update.
What bothers me is when I give an email at a store for receipt or refund purposes, and they take that as an opt-in to multiple marketing emails per week. And removing myself from the list often takes multiple attempts at "unsubscribe".
If I don't explicitly opt-in to marketing, I should never get marketing. Ahem, Microcenter.
Having proxy addresses is nice. But I can't just kill an alias if I'm using the email for refunds, or if I use the service multiple times. Also don't want to generate and read off alias emails when I'm at a cash register.
Hum... Except for the 2 emails asking for feedback, I don't see any problem with that.
Do you get overwhelmed by emails tracking items you brought? You expect stores not to communicate with you about active contracts you've already paid for and have actions pending from their part? Why exactly do you think that's a problem?
I documented the 13+ emails I received over the course of trying to buy a wallet: https://jfloren.net/b/2022/12/12/0
Everybody just assumes they're the only thing hitting your inbox, like I don't also have "engagement" messages from 3 other stores I bought shit from two years back, plus PG&E trying to convince me to install a meter that can turn off my A/C remotely, plus Nextdoor trying to update me because somebody thinks they heard a gunshot...
> Everybody just assumes they're the only thing hitting your inbox
They know your inbox has 100s of competing senders and their message could get lost, that's why they spam. A large number of people don't curate their inbox, never unsubscribe and just make do reading 20% of their messages.
Same with phone notifications.
without email spam, there wasn't any reason to curate a mailbox.
I actually really enjoy getting this sequence of emails but I use Gmail’s auto categorization so it just goes in the “Updates” folder and gets auto-forwarded to my claw-like so it’s not super interrupty. I prefer to have the full trace on my side rather than on the provider side because their site might go down and so on.
I can see why people get annoyed. It’s just the alternative that I really dislike.
This way I can do all analysis on my own side or search for status on my side. I prefer to own the data and have it pushed in a timely manner.
In contrast I’m a fan of the overeager messages for actual updates like these presented.
It is just when after said delivery that I then end up on a mailing list where I get sent something seemingly daily from a single vendor that I’m less pleased.
Same here. Back in 1999 buying something of a yahoo market website was a crapshoot and you didn’t know what was going on till you got it. I have no issue with overzealous updates. But after that; go away! I know you exist.
It's honestly one of his worst videos, but Jon Bois has quite thoroughly documented how many mattresses they tried to sell him as a result of him buying a mattress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36R8xlhe1U
I strongly suspect that "Do not send me marketing emails" at checkout time ACTUALLY means "Wait 6 months before sending me marketing emails, when I might plausibly forget that I checked this box", because I always do my best to opt out of mailing lists and I always seem to start getting stuff anyway 6-12 months after making a purchase. The Silicon Valley model of consent strikes again.
All I need when I buy something online is the shipping tracking number. That's it. I don't need an invoice. What am I going to do with that, print it out and stare at it? I don't need constant tracking updates. I can get these myself with the tracking number. I don't need to know it was delivered (again, tracking number, and I can also just look on the porch with my eyeballs). I don't need any of the other sales-spam that always seems to accompany these orders. An online merchant shouldn't even need my E-mail address. I should be able to click "buy" and the next page shows me the tracking number. That's the only relationship I want with you!
An invoice/receipt is often necessary for booking purposes, reimbursements, taxes, etc. But to your point, just put it in the same email as the tracking number and move on.
Apple hide my email was a great solution to this, I feel like we need a proper open source alternative. Basically a relay inbox that is ephemeral and you can discard once you’re done.
I pay for Fastmail.com precisely for their unlimited aliases and masked addresses.
Since virtually everything now requires creating an account (thanks marketers, bots, AI agents), I always use throwaway emails + privacy tools.
I've internalized the delete shortcut in gmail and configured one of the swipe directions in the app to be delete. For a long time, I archived every email, but there's so much crap like this now to wade through.
I also discovered that a busy local mailing list was sending images as attachments that counted against my quota, so even more incentive to delete instead of archive.
Actually, four emails, not ten. Author writes as if it’s some conspiracy of sellers and shipping companies to maximise the number of emails. Each sends with any excuse they have. The email is treated as a drop box of transactional notes that business sends to customers inbox so customer can always find that info if they would have a need. It’s not frivolous sending that we need to fix but some standard of “receipt” folders, like Gmail auto folders in half-assed way. So these emails bypass inbox directly to special folder. And it should have a standard name so customer service can say “look in your Receipts folder”.
And Two “We received your order” is unnecessary, as well as “create account”. But if they send those it must be working? Or they send even is only handful of people click on them?
Never give out your email. Just hand out proxy addresses. Have a couple in your wallet\phone casing for when you need to give one right away without time to generate it.
No spam. Or if you get some, one click to stop receiving mail from a specific proxy.
Takes some using to, and some work each time you give out an email address. But so does sifting through a ton of spam, because you didn't care enough to only give out a proxy address.
I've been using Proton Mail and iOS (through iCloud+) for this. Almost every purchase online goes through a proxy, and once the item is delivered, the email deleted.
This has a side benefit of being able to sign up to the popup modals for like, 10-20% off a first purchase.
Some sites do not parse the emails correctly though (if they contain periods, etc) and it's also hard to order track.
I find it's worth the trouble to have a relatively quiet inbox.
The worst abusers are the ones that mix vital emails with marketing and fluff. In the US you have to deal with the Social Security Administration your entire adult life. You need to deal with them while paying into the program during the working years and also while cashing out in retirement. So you can't just ignore communications with them, but yet most emails are fluff like holiday greetings, reminders not to be scammed (which are repeats of the same advice they gave in all previous emails).
Banks also do this, but they at least use the same subject lines that I can auto-filter.
Edit: egg on my face. The article’s author suggested the same service. Heh. Anyways…
I highly recommend a service like SimpleLogin. It allows for dynamic wildcards:
- store1@my.domain - whatever@my.domain - @my.domain
All gets fwd to my real email and I can kill any address from my email client by unsubscribing (or login to the SimpleLogin interface)
You can go further and use subdomains or pattern matching to send things to different addresses like your spouse and friends. e.g.
- @friend.my.domain -> friend@gmail.com - *@spouse.my.domain -> babe@example.com
Not affiliated, just really happy with the service
I do this. But I hit a wall with shopify. They only allow 5 email addresses to be bound to an account and only one account to one phone number. So now I cannot get tracking information from about a dozen online stores that at some point or another switched to shopify after I already made a custom email for them
You'd love AliExpress. There's probably 20-25 emails per order as there are so many tracking steps. But I like it, just automatically move them to a folder.
Is there a technical limitation why these never seem to be grouped into a thread? I generally appreciate the updates on my package, but I also value a tidy inbox.
i am no fan of spam. but i am totally fine (and expect, really) to receive email #s 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 on this 10 point list.
- 1 confirms my order was received, and im not left thinking i ordered something when it wasnt processed.
- 3, 4, 6, 7 are all good for ensuring my order didnt get lost in the process and lets me schedule my day if needed.
- proof of delivery (8) is good for records, disputes, or just knowing that i should pop over to my house on lunch so the item isnt sitting outside all day.
however, i do use my own domain and unique addresses per store (e.g. "walmart@example.com" if i need a walmart account for whatever reason), so that if/when companies start doing the "we miss you", "please rate us", "seriously, please rate us, you havent yet :(" or whatever, i can immediately bin it.
Same. Also if one created an account before that order that would be another 3 or 4 emails.
What pisses me the most is getting the same information over Whatsapp too - just a few minutes earlier!
Same here - almost identical for me.
This is convenient tracking. Worse is the daily marketing you never opted into.
Ugh... same feelings here... looking at you, eBay.
Maybe for you it’s a problem, I personally know people that if they don’t get these emails they start calling support services to know where’s the order or what’s the update.
These actually don't bother me so much.
What bothers me is when I give an email at a store for receipt or refund purposes, and they take that as an opt-in to multiple marketing emails per week. And removing myself from the list often takes multiple attempts at "unsubscribe".
If I don't explicitly opt-in to marketing, I should never get marketing. Ahem, Microcenter.
Having proxy addresses is nice. But I can't just kill an alias if I'm using the email for refunds, or if I use the service multiple times. Also don't want to generate and read off alias emails when I'm at a cash register.
Wait until you see the tracking data that led to your purchase.
Haha truth
Hum... Except for the 2 emails asking for feedback, I don't see any problem with that.
Do you get overwhelmed by emails tracking items you brought? You expect stores not to communicate with you about active contracts you've already paid for and have actions pending from their part? Why exactly do you think that's a problem?