20th September 2011, 1:24 AM
Um, what? Of course the postal service is something we need. People need to be able to get mail. The internet can't replace all physical products, not unless we all had cheap 3d printers (that could make anything) or something! And even then, for some things paper mail would make sense.
I mean, sure, the internet has hurt the postal service a lot -- the death of the personal letter is the main reason why they're in trouble now -- but they still provide a vitally important service. The problem is, how can we keep that going, when they're losing so much money? Honestly, my first thought is "we should just subsidize it more", because the plans I've seen -- closing huge numbers of post offices, ending Saturday service -- are pretty radical, the no Saturday mail one particularly, but there certainly is a problem, and they can't solve it by just raising rates more. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but the fact is that even if people aren't sending mail as much as before, the postal service is still very important and we can't let it die, or let all rural/non-profitable post offices close, or something like that. That would be destroying a vital American service.
I mean, sure, the internet has hurt the postal service a lot -- the death of the personal letter is the main reason why they're in trouble now -- but they still provide a vitally important service. The problem is, how can we keep that going, when they're losing so much money? Honestly, my first thought is "we should just subsidize it more", because the plans I've seen -- closing huge numbers of post offices, ending Saturday service -- are pretty radical, the no Saturday mail one particularly, but there certainly is a problem, and they can't solve it by just raising rates more. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but the fact is that even if people aren't sending mail as much as before, the postal service is still very important and we can't let it die, or let all rural/non-profitable post offices close, or something like that. That would be destroying a vital American service.
Weltall Wrote:Is the USPS a public service people actually need? The average person doesn't do a whole lot of sending letters these days. Most mail carried comes from groups, organizations, businesses, etc., and why should the public subsidize that? If sending unsolicited credit card applications, collections statements and other kinds of junk mail becomes significantly more expensive, it will force a curbing of activities nobody really likes anyway. It will be more expensive for the average person, too, but how often do you actually send mail? A few times a year?That's ridiculous, all mail isn't junk mail.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:I hate UPS. Not only is their "minimum" package size (for sending, say, old instruction manuals) ridiculously expensive, they tend to never deliver a package properly. I've been using USPS for all my package delivery and never once had an issue.Yeah, and they can just put those small packages in the mailbox, too. No need to deliver it in person or any of that annoying stuff. Quite handy.