Quote:
Originally Posted by fishbones
It's not so much the price per piece of mail, but the quantity being sent. People pay bills online now, they send e-cards, they write emails instead of letters and businesses are doing much more via email or through intranet. The postal service is becoming obsolete because of technology.
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It's pretty much true that email has replaced the simple first class letter, but the USPS "business" model was flawed early on. It subsidized the cost of sending a letter from Boston to Fairbanks, AL by charging the same fee to sending a letter to a local destination. It's a nice, egalitarian idea, but . . . And it was able to deter private competition by making it a Federal crime to place anything other than USPS delivered items in mail boxes. What really made it economically difficult (before the email problem--which the PO is smart enough to offer as a service for a fee) is the absurd growth of benefits the postal workers got as various Government employee unions bargained with compliant Government officials in the 1960s and thereafter. That's when the postal rates began and since have continued to steadily rise. As PRBUZZ says, the 4th class junk mail is what now keeps the USPS afloat. And it is a worldwide problem. Not only has the cost of running the system become unsustainable, the quality has collapsed. It is much safer to send items to foreign destinations by private courier than by Government POs. Registered Mail is still pretty safe, but not assured, and often takes up to a month to arrive. It is not uncommon to get your neighbors credit card statement delivered to your box.