I remember that process used to be called 'deboning' the magazine.

Hahah, I did the same.

It was either the Economist or FT that did a cost/benefit analysis of removing those inserts for their already-subscribed customers copies, and found that it would cost more in lost new subscriptions to remove them.

> it would cost more in lost new subscriptions to remove them.

How does that make sense?

I guess because people are reminded weekly to resubscribe or buy subscriptions as gifts.

I dunno if it applies to me since I would habitually forget to resubscribe until they sent me the YOUR LAST ISSUE wrapping like an invasive Santa Claus.

Opportunity cost of lost subscriptions. A certain percentage of those inserts will convert to new subscriptions, even if the person receiving the insert was already a subscriber.

Some of those inserts were invitations to subscribe to the Economist.

For a while, there were people who used to drop them all in the mail.

Force the publishers and advertisers to pay the postage for them with the idea of making it less profitable to include them with the magazines in the first place.

I used to do that, back in the 90s in college. First I just put tons of trash paper in business-reply envelopes and drop them in the mail, then I started filling them up with gravel.

Years later, on the internet, I remember seeing some article about people doing this, and they had pictures of things like business-reply envelopes attached to bricks, which the USPS had received. IIRC, they said that the USPS didn't actually send these or charge the business for them, unfortunately.

So stick with just dropping them in the mail as-is, to make sure the business gets charged for it.

One time, back in the 80s, American Express had some kind of disagreement with the union that my step-father belonged to and the members of his union went out and every time they'd see the American Express credit card applications, they'd take them all and send them back in blank.

They had been told that each application cost a dollar to have mailed and processed.

I was a child so I never cared enough to ask about the details of the dispute and I don't know how long they did this, only that they did.

Wow, that really brings me back. I remember reading on Quora TE's chief editor explaining that the reason digital and print subscriptions were the same price was because digital ads were easier to avoid or block and were worth less to advertisers than print ads, which are more prominent and harder to ignore (unless you fold it over, but even then you'll certainly notice it).

those cardboard inserts made the best joint filters