I would not say that. I for example once have received a card from Fiji and I have sent one there as well. So it can happen that you send and receive a card from a rare country. Probably does not happen that often but over the years, why not.
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A miracle had happend. With repeated countries ticked I requested some addresses and got 3x Germany, 1x Russia, 1x Finland and 
my frist card to Serbia! 
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At some point last year, with repeated countries I got Hong Kong (my second time!) and my very first sent to Portugal.
I had repeated countries off for a while but switched it on again recently, so far it’s the classic Germany, Russia, USA, but not as much USA as I was fearing (still scared that the postal service is not doing so well there, but actually I got one registered in only 27 days, so I’ll be more positive about it!).
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I got south corea yesterday with repeated countries 
Sometimes there are real surprises
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I love this option. Half the time I get Germany and that’s my favorite country to send cards to. They always get delivered quickly, sometimes even quicker than cards sent to other US states.
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I’ve always had repeated countries on. Yesterday I got my first address to Macau!
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I put Repeated Countries back on recently and it’s been a familiar alternating of Germany, Russia, USA
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With repeated countries on I now got to send cards to South Korea, Italy and India. I love when that happens because it always comes so unexpected 
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I’ve just written my first non-top3 country postcard! It’s going to Finland 
after 11 German cards, 10 Russian cards and 6 American cards.
That being said I don’t mind having the option on under the statement of “Writing to people, not countries”, though I admit I like to pull German addresses because they arrive within a week haha
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With repeated countries, I got USA 5 times in a row. Yes, I love it
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With repeated countries I asked for 7 addresses today and I got four different countries - non of them were USA and only one to Germany.
I am using repeated countries for quite a while now and now I have 72 cards travelling to 10 countries. So I think there is some variety even with repeated countries
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This is why I use “send to repeated countries”, not so much that I’m concerned about sending to the 1 active user in a country, but for countries with say 10-50 active users, sending to 1 of them gives you one less potential account to receive from.
When, in 2014, I drew an address in Macao, to the most active user there, I knew that I had severely decreased my chances of ever receiving from there. Not to say that it’s impossible, of course, especially with enough time. But, it did make me sad.
At that time, I decided that I would forever use “send to repeated countries”, to avoid that happening again. I don’t care which country I write at the bottom of the address, and in the US all international mail has the same rate, so it really doesn’t matter to me.
It does mean that I get about 50/50 Germany and Russia, my own country is unchecked for privacy, meaning I send a lot to the fastest country and to one of the slowest, maybe actually 45/45 with 10% random others. But, I am happy to do so. It helps PX balance the demand, and it increases my chances, perhaps only slightly, of receiving from a new country. Perhaps that makes me selfish, but because I am in a very popular country, I don’t feel as though I’m depriving people in other countries of receiving my card, haha!
If I were living in Macao, for example, I think I would leave it unchecked. But, because I’m not, I’m fine with it.
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I’m getting Russia and USA a lot with the option on lately. And two Netherlands. I’m happy Russia is back as it had become less usual to me in the last few months!
But now that the USA are as slow if not slower than Russia, I’ll need some patience… And I’m sure I’m not far from drawing some Germany again 
I’m fed up of sending to the same three countries. I’ve nothing against these places but want the small joy of sending to a rarer place. I’ve followed the protocol to do what is possible to stop getting addresses for places where my postcards are already travelling to, but not much luck.
I suggest a push from Postcrossing organisers to spread the word to as many countries as possible.
you’ve sent to 27 countries in less than a year so i would say that’s a bit more than 3.
i suggest if you want more people to join postcrossing you do something about that yourself. tell your friends, talk about it on facebook or whatever social media you’re on. i actually learnt about postcrossing because someone made a post about it on a cat forum i was on at the time. so many options.
also maybe keep in mind there are a lot of other reasons that some countries are more likely to send cards than others. like prices of stamps and/or cards. for example i know stamp prices in germany are pretty cheap. they’re always very surprised when they buy stamps here in the netherlands and i tell them it’s €1.55 for an international stamp.
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I drew 30 addresses today, 1 Russia and 29 Germany 
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I have never used the the option - for most of my time in Postcrossing selecting repeated countries would have provided me with Russian addresses, ensuring that my already slow travelling time for cards would have been virtually doubled.
I recently drew an address to Bulgaria - (third time in six and a half years) and this made me ponder what would happen if I did use the option. I can only imagine that no-one in Bulgaria would ever receive a card from me, no big deal from my viewpoint, but possibly disappointing for them if they wanted cards from anywhere other than the usual countries.
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You know, I never thought of it from the point of view of the receiver! We always think of addressing the imbalance for the big countries.
I started with repeated countries to “help” and because I’m interested in Russia and at the time Russia ruled, possibly even more than Germany (my first 5 were all to Russia, took forever), then had it on and off mainly because of the time they took and so many got lost. I keep having it on and off, again in the middle of last year I switched it off as the USA were more and more common but also slower and slower as well as unreliable.
Then back on, only got the top 3. Yesterday I switched it off, I got India… Then USA and Russia
We talked many times about how it’s hard to get some countries interested, and how it’s hard in some places if postage costs are too high or postcard are not so available. And simply the population of those 3 countries is big!
I also feel members from the USA have increased a lot during the pandemic, not just new members but also people coming back after years of inactivity. I wonder if they will all stick around once life offers more opportunities for other hobbies…
Quite the little detective, aren’t you? It’s up to me how I think and feel so please spare me the “this is the way we do it here” homilies.
Postcrossing has a duty to its members and itself to spread the word. Of course, individuals can help this process, as I have done, but an organisation that is invested in its own growth and the satisfaction of its members has to have the biggest involvement in its own future.
It’s boring and unfulfilling to this individual to constantly be sent addresses in the past several weeks to mainly the same three countries, especially ones that take at least a fortnight for postcards to arrive.
I’m disappointed that Postcrossing will not rejig algorithms (or whatever it is) to help senders enjoy the thrill of the new when it knows there are imbalances in the system and when a “partial remedy” to the problem of getting addresses for countries to which cards are currently travelling is, indeed, very much partial to the extent that, in my experience, it is not working at all.
The thing is that it’s not only about the senders. There are receivers involved as well. And people from rarer countries are often already sent more cards than they are due, simply because the system tries to satisfy the senders’ needs (or rather wishes) by giving them a bigger variety of countries. But if you receive more than you have sent, your address will not be given out again until this has balanced out, meaning that you won’t receive anything for a while and you need to “catch up” with your sending. And when you’re finally there, your address is often given out multiple times again, because people desperately want to send to [any other than the big 3 countries] - and the whole thing starts again.
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