With folks getting bent out of shape these days for the environmental unfriendliness of even small things – like the sleeve on your coffee cup – how is it that the Yellow Pages still exist? We came across this stack on Spruce Street near 46th.
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August 1st, 2011 at 11:48 am
I used to sell ads for the yellowpages, which is basically all it is; a big book of ads. And they are expensive ads, too. MY best guess for a place like Philly, the back page probably costs somewhere in the $15,000 range for a year. The little you see on the spine there costs probably only a little bit less than that, and every single listing in the yellowpages beyond a simple name and number is big money for the publisher. Even if nobody cracks the book, if Verizon can convince businesses to buy ads, they’ll still publish the books.
August 1st, 2011 at 12:01 pm
On the one hand, people that can afford a monthly cell phone bill and in-home high-speed internet (like me) probably haven’t touched one of those in years. On the other hand, if you need a plumber and don’t have easy access to Yelp or any one of the thousand other crowd-sourced review apps to find out the number of the closest reputable plumber, then you might still need the YP.
It’d be great if there was an opt-out list for these – call a number, give your address, and you magically stop receiving a ten-pound block of scrap paper every year. Or just stop door-to-door delivery and instead have someplace in the neighborhood where you could pick one up if you wanted one. Count how many are used each year and adjust next year’s accordingly.
Oh, wait. I forgot: this is Verizon printing money for themselves. Never mind.
August 1st, 2011 at 12:10 pm
You can OPT OUT of receiving yellowpages/whitepages here: http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/user/register I opted out last fall, and sure enough a few weeks ago when everyone on my block got their latest edition all I received was a tag on the door that informed me I had opted out and could always get the information online. It worked!!! Share this with your friends, neighbors, neighborhood list servs, etc. and eliminate all the waste!