There's been a lot of hype about “going paperless” these days. And besides “saving trees” we're persuaded into accepting that there are advantages to receiving our utility bills, for example, directly online instead of having them mailed to us.
When I first heard of this concept, I thought what a great way to help save our trees and make my life more convenient at the same time. So, I cancelled my hardcopies from being delivered by the mail person and began to receive my bills on line. But that's when it hit me, who really benefits from this?
Let me use my telephone bill to help explain my concern. When I used to get this bill in the mail, it would be a couple pages of actual charges, a return envelope, a page for advertising their service, and often a small brochure describing a new technical device that was being made available to me, the customer.
This was convenient for me. It came to my house, I read my bill, glanced over their inserts and then threw them in the garbage, and then wrote a cheque and threw it back in the mail to them. As online payments became available, the envelope joined the rest of the inserts in the garbage.
Now that I've gone paperless, nothing goes in the garbage because I don't receive anything. I just pay my bill online, print off a copy for myself and then file it in my utility file.
But here is my concern.
My understanding of the whole attitude behind “going paperless” was to save the trees. But are we saving trees or are we helping the utility company save a pile of money on their expenses?
Sure, less paper is being used now because the actual paper for my bill is being reduced to one page that I print off for myself. So, in essence, the phone company isn't using paper for my bill any more, and I am the only guilty party now, still actively cutting down the trees.
But the company itself saves big bucks! How? They save the money for all the paper that they used to send out; they save a ton on ink and a fortune on computer costs and electricity expenses; they save on the envelopes that were printed up especially for the accounts department; they save on postage; they save by not requiring paid staff members to prepare the bill and other staff members to open my bill payment, key it into the computer and go to the bank to deposit my cheque.
They save an absolute fortune in expenses because we, the people, have been programmed to believe that saving a tree is the concept behind the convenience of online services. They have passed all their expenses onto us - and that would be hundreds of thousands of us - and we don't even realize it.
Is a tree being saved through their strategy? Perhaps, but then their junk mail with all their colourful advertising has doubled in quantity in my mailbox. It would be my guess that “saving a tree” has been a great excuse to pass the expense along to the consumer, getting them to blindly pay their advertising costs.
And I'm not saying that receiving and paying my bill online isn't convenient because it is. It's there and available for me any time I want to view my bill or pay it. And there's no more buying stamps and running to the post office to mail in my payment.
What I am saying, is that the strategy behind the concept of saving trees has been extremely successful in helping big companies to prosper by saving them millions of dollars in production costs. Since we are indirectly involved in their prosperity, you would think that they would show their appreciation by passing along some savings to us, the consumer. Perhaps it's in their future plans.
Another success story for big business and we are helping them to get there!
