Time for a Change!

[Mike Cleaver]

The day after New Year's, Smellus or it's contractor dumped Yellow Pages, wrapped in plastic, outside every door in our building.
We have a nice mix of young and old living here.
Today, exactly 23 of the 25 books, still wrapped in plastic, are in the recycling bin.
Seems no one wants this anachronistic item any more.
It's much easier to find what you want on the web, on your cell phone or hand held device.
Why don't they ask their customers, on their bill, either paper (who still gets those?) or on line if they want one of these things and then deliver them accordingly, instead of adding to stuff you have to throw out or recycle?
Telephone books are so last century!

[tuned]

You have to wonder why companies keep paying big bucks to advertise in the yellow pages? They are going to keep printing them as long as the cheques keep coming in.

[Jack Bennest]

Its a revenue producer for which ever company issues directories. When the advertiser gets the message that they are wasting their ad dollar - some change will come. My house is filled
with two types of residential listings plus the yellow pages. Just today I commented on a book
prepared to help seniors with needed services. Small reference books like that are printed for older people without computers. Soon newspapers, magazines will be a thing of the past - however I cannot agrue with the people who will say - those businesses are still making money.

[Mike Cleaver]

Another point:
If seniors are the only ones who want these things, then why is the print inside telephone books soooooo small?
They should attach one of those flat magnifying screens to every book they drop off!

[Dan Sys]

Back in the old days when I was a letter carrier there was one company in particular (I think it might have been Can Pages) that would just flood the apartment lobbies on my route with their directories. If it was a 20 suite building, they would leave 40 books......a 40 suite building would get 80, etc. etc. Obviously that was their method of operation to bolster the circulation figures. They would sit in those lobbies for weeks, still intact in the plastic bundle wrappers until the caretakers (who considered it to be nothing more than littering) would toss them.

[slowhand]

Why don't they ask their customers, on their bill, either paper (who still gets those?) or on line if they want one of these things and then deliver them accordingly, instead of adding to stuff you have to throw out or recycle?

Another point:
If seniors are the only ones who want these things, then why is the print inside telephone books soooooo small?
They should attach one of those flat magnifying screens to every book they drop off!

That has always been the problem with anything that is free and funded by advertising. There is so much room for the publisher to dump, directly or indirectly, thousands of addition copies just to inflate circulation.

Twenty years ago, I used to help seniors by, at their request, splitting their Yellow Pages into two with a knife. They couldn't lift the complete book it was so heavy!