Amazing progress from Royal Mail

[d000hg]

The invention of postage stamps more than 180 years ago transformed the way people sent and received letters.

Now they are being brought into the digital age, with QR codes being added to everyday Royal Mail stamps.

From Tuesday people will be able to scan the codes using the Royal Mail app and watch an animation featuring Shaun the Sheep.

I'm glad to see they're not using the technology for something foolish.

[d000hg]

While at the same time creating a huge amount of work, inconveniencing lots of people and potentially wiping out £millions when people don't realise that:

Non QR-coded stamps - including Christmas stamps - will now only be valid until January next year.

[tazdevil]

While at the same time creating a huge amount of work, inconveniencing lots of people and potentially wiping out £millions when people don't realise that:

The price of progress

[northernladuk]

They need to do something to improve their services. It's been absolutely dire for as long as I can remember. First class is 50/50 at best and I've had maybe 3 in 10 of the last signed for's arrive on time. Service is a joke at it's current levels

[hobnob]

potentially wiping out £millions

Going back to the article:

Non QR-coded stamps - including Christmas stamps - will now only be valid until January next year.
However, they can be exchanged for the new ones through Royal Mail's Swap Out scheme, which opens on 31 March.

There's no end date for the Swap Out scheme, and I assume this will be similar to when bank notes change; you can't spend the old notes in a shop, but you can still take them to a bank and replace them with new ones.

[d000hg]

They need to do something to improve their services. It's been absolutely dire for as long as I can remember. First class is 50/50 at best and I've had maybe 3 in 10 of the last signed for's arrive on time. Service is a joke at it's current levels

That is perhaps more an issue at your last leg. Very reliable here.
RM are handling a lot of covid tests so I wonder if this is a factor, or just the fact they have a lot of staff absence right now? Our PO now has Sunday collections, specifically added IIRC for Covid test drop-off.

There's no end date for the Swap Out scheme, and I assume this will be similar to when bank notes change; you can't spend the old notes in a shop, but you can still take them to a bank and replace them with new ones.

No end date yet announced. Remember when they changed the coins, that certainly didn't last forever.
And that's beside the point. Why should people have to spend millions of man hours visiting their PO? In rural communities many of us don't have a local PO (or bank). So we have to spend time and money sorting this out when nobody wanted it.