Wow. This is a really interesting article, just in the gratifies intellectual curiosity sense, and I can imagine quite a few Hacker News readers turning this knowledge into new business opportunities. The facts explained in this article about the Universal Postal Union and its influence on pricing of international goods shipments helps me understanding some of the otherwise completely baffling pricing I've seen for items I've bought on Amazon, for example. This is the most surprising and yet practical and informative new post I've seen on Hacker News for quite a while.