I feel like this should be public. I wonder what would be the repercussion of a gofundme to buy it once and make it publicly available. There aren't many downsides of updating every couple years.
There are plenty of 'good enough' options that are free; just ignore the USPS' offerings unless you ABSOLUTELY have to match them 1:1 for business reasons.
"A full postcode identifies a group of addresses (typically around ten) or a major delivery point."
The United States can be more granular, as a "full postcode" equivalent in the United States is ZIP+4, which can resolve down to an individual building, mailbox, or person, depending on the characteristics of the location.
As someone who has done tons of geospatial work I hate this. A ZIP code was never technically a geospatial boundary. Being "inside" a boundary does not guarantee you have that ZIP code, just that the space is surrounded by a bunch of postal delivery addresses bearing the ZIP code.
Polygons do have value in some workflows, if used with the appropriate caveats.
And in no instances have I ever run across use cases where these are worth paying any substantial money for. If USPS is going to jump into the fray here, really bad look (and probably net negative revenue for them) to offer as a paid product.
The USPS is losing money hand over fist delivering the unwanted junk mail
The fact that you think the Postal Service loses money delivering junk mail shows that you don't have any idea what's going on.
Junk mail is a massive revenue source for the USPS. According to the congressmen I've spoken with (Yes, I actually have done that), junk mail is hugely revenue positive, which is why it's allowed to continue.
USPS' financial problems largely have to do with pensions and other non-delivery issues.
blame EDDM, aka junk mail, aka physical SPAM that you can not opt out of. its a jobs program that I suppose also benefits the paper product recycling industry
If this is govt-owned data, shouldn’t it be available with a FOIA request or similar?
Can someone with expertise in govt data rights explain? Do any other US govt agencies sell data to the private sector?
I thought these were going to be free and got so excited.
FWIW if you're willing to deal with some 'fuzziness' and the occasional missing zip code that's commercial only, the ZCTA shapefiles are free and are close enough for many purposes: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
I feel like this should be public. I wonder what would be the repercussion of a gofundme to buy it once and make it publicly available. There aren't many downsides of updating every couple years.
https://postalpro.usps.com/ZCB_License would seem to prevent such a use/distribution of the data.
There are plenty of 'good enough' options that are free; just ignore the USPS' offerings unless you ABSOLUTELY have to match them 1:1 for business reasons.
I'm sure their system has its faults, but I find shipping to the UK via postal code quite easy.
"A full postcode identifies a group of addresses (typically around ten) or a major delivery point."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...
"A full postcode identifies a group of addresses (typically around ten) or a major delivery point."
The United States can be more granular, as a "full postcode" equivalent in the United States is ZIP+4, which can resolve down to an individual building, mailbox, or person, depending on the characteristics of the location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_Code#ZIP+4
And even for those where it isn’t one exact person/box there is a 2 digit delivery point code that often is included on the end.
bottom line is that this should be open source and available on the US governments dataset website.
Seeing enterprise
We use https://github.com/OpenDataDE/State-zip-code-GeoJSON - it's from 2010, but open it in Claude and use the free-to-download data source to regen from the most recent census.
As someone who has done tons of geospatial work I hate this. A ZIP code was never technically a geospatial boundary. Being "inside" a boundary does not guarantee you have that ZIP code, just that the space is surrounded by a bunch of postal delivery addresses bearing the ZIP code.
Polygons do have value in some workflows, if used with the appropriate caveats.
And in no instances have I ever run across use cases where these are worth paying any substantial money for. If USPS is going to jump into the fray here, really bad look (and probably net negative revenue for them) to offer as a paid product.
Webapp in 3.2.1...
Huge.info has existed for decades:
https://maps.huge.info/zip.htm
starting at $10k
Is that the real pricing?
The USPS is losing money hand over fist delivering the unwanted junk mail and Christmas cards we throw away once the tree is put away.
I don't think this will stop the bleed, but maybe it'll help that they are charging??
The USPS is losing money hand over fist delivering the unwanted junk mail
The fact that you think the Postal Service loses money delivering junk mail shows that you don't have any idea what's going on.
Junk mail is a massive revenue source for the USPS. According to the congressmen I've spoken with (Yes, I actually have done that), junk mail is hugely revenue positive, which is why it's allowed to continue.
USPS' financial problems largely have to do with pensions and other non-delivery issues.
blame EDDM, aka junk mail, aka physical SPAM that you can not opt out of. its a jobs program that I suppose also benefits the paper product recycling industry
i have a hole in my pool... thousands of gallons per day are draining into the neighbors yard
oh, so are you having someone come out to patch the hole and fix it?
no, the hole is still there. we are spending 3k per month to get a water delivery truck to refill the pool.
of course they are going to try and monetize this. that's trump's america.
Try is the key word. It won't work.
this data has been monetized for decades