I get all my bills paperless. It would prefer getting my spam flyers once a week instead of everyday.
I do acknowledge there are still some valid reasons to use the US Mail, but half of the mail days seems more than enough to deliver valid mail.
They fought to keep delivering on Saturdays. I doubt you'll get them to cut the week in half.
Yeah, the unemployment payments to all the laid off workers will probably be cheaper than the salaries. Of course, since the unemployment funds don't come from the sale of the stamps, be prepared to pay your part.
Just don't complain when the employment rate goes up and the economic recovery slows even further as all of the laid workers have less to spend.
With the good comes the bad.
And even then, stamps could cost you considerably less:
"Counterfeit stamps have been identified as a steady, recurring risk for the U.S. Postal Service, which reported a loss of $8.5 billion in the last fiscal year..."
Those of us who take for granted having internet-connected computers at home have to remember that there are tens of millions in this country who, whether too poor, too mentally challenged (either developmentally or aged) or just plain uninterested, do NOT have internet-connected computers at home. For them, the U.S. mail is a necessity, not merely a source of spam flyers. Besides, in most countries with far more modest economies (and egos) than ours, there is typically daily mail service at an affordable price.
Have we become too advanced and advantaged to renounce our mail service along with our once admired public education and health care systems?
or don't have decent internet service available. I know someone like that.
In the early 1900's, Londoners got as many as FOUR mail deliveries per day.
One could mail out invitations for afternoon tea and collect the RSVPs in time to mail the shopping list to the grocer.
Speak for yourself...as others have noted, many areas of the country don't have the luxury afforded to areas with higher population densities (fortunately, we lack some of the associated problems, too, unfortunately not all of them).
I agree I had 2 boxes shipped on the same day from the same shipper. (California to Florida) The USPS priority Mail box got here 5 days faster than Fed Ex ground and the Fed Ex box cost more to ship.
I seem to get about the same results from all the services. I live in North Carolina and I think Texas is about as far as I can think of right now that I have gotten anything from lately. If I order on Monday I almost always get it by Thursday or Friday. I did get a package about 10 years ago from California in 3 days by FedEx.
The worst service I have gotten lately was the US Mail. Friend in a town less than an hour a way by car sent me a package that contained an item about the size of a printer ink cartrage. It took almost two weeks from the postmark. All othere things seem to come in a few days from the shipping date.
"Ralph Mowery" wrote
I sent a package about that size a few months back. Put it in my mailbox here in rural CT and the carrier picked it up on Saturday about 3PM. I was shocked to get an email from the recipient on Monday in Los Angeles.
It seems to me that the USPS is missing an opportunity to not only make money but to move up to the 21st century. Instead of bitching about the competition (i.e the internet) make use of it and charge for it.
At present we have an unfortunate attitude towards email: if you send Corporation X an email complaining (say) about their product, if it gets read at all it's not responded to or gets a perfunctory response. OTOH if you send them a snail mail obviously composed and written for the occasion most often you'll get some attention from the corpocracy and frequently a custom-composed letter. At least they looked.
Further, because of privacy concerns, sometimes even those imposed by government (e.g. pharmaceutical notices), you can't get the information directly (i.e. by open email) and you can't prove delivery.
Spam too is a major nuisance but much less so for snail mail because there the sender has to pay for each piece of mail sent.
So the answer both to the USPS's financial problems and to the user's reliability questions is for the USPS to handle email and charge for the privilege (or right). You could still send free email, as could the spammer, but after a while people would just toss it away unread. Straight to the bit bucket unless it's delivered by the USPS.
The way the new email would work is that we'd all establish an account with the PO and give them (say) $10 to cover future costs of mailing (the amount would be replenished like it is with EZ Pass). The PO would send you (by snail mail) the necessary software and importantly a PGP password. You could only send an email to others with accounts but when you do it will be encrypted and really sent to the PO who will do the decryption and re-encryption for the recipient. The PO would send you notification of delivery for every email.
Some things Congress and the Courts would have to do: Make via legislation the USPS email as secure as first class snail mail. Mega-penalties for anyone disclosing the contents. The USPS would be specifically forbidden to make back-ups more than those necessary to cover a minor system glitch and anyone who has a valid reason to read your mail would have to jump through the same hoops as they would currently for snail mail.
I'd pay $0.10 to send a secure email under this system but I'll bet the spammers wouldn't.
Since they have to go to the house anyway every day, why not just have the PO print out your Email and deliver it, with a confirmation. (basically certified mail at that point)
Another idea I have already sent them is why not have a post paid pre addressed priority flat rate box you can send someone.( online) If you want Granny to send you your baseball cards (or something), you send her the box, she puts the stuff in it and gives it to the mail man the next day. Nothing else required from her.
"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in news:J9WdnSzA_O3jhGPRnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
yeah, and close the mailbox lid cuz with all the rain/snow, my mail is a mess. After the other guy retired we now have lazy delivery people.
"h" wrote in news:idm3op$qmh$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
In our office complex, USPS removed the mailbox. WTF. Now I drive out of my way to mail things. They deliver the mail early in the day and I won't let mail sit around for another day waiting for them. UPS and FedEx still have boxes there, so I try to use them more than USPS.
Its an efficiency thing. We have a large mailbox. The carriers roll up the mail and push it in and leave the lid open. Multiple carriers claim thats what they are specifically required to do.
They don't weigh prepaid return envelopes. All they do is count them.
But look what happened when it was proposed to have a "public" (i.e., government) health-insurance plan: "No, no no!! They'll put the private insurers out of business!!" I think there would be screams if the USPS did try to move into the 21st century and compete with UPS and FedEx.
Perce
The postal service did experiment with electronic mail back before it was so common. It was in the days when the only national data communications networks were private. They were told to get out of it.
The post office is not supposed to compete with the private sector. They tread a fine line of attempting to remain in the black yet not drive competing services like fedex and ups out of business. You think a organization with the backing of the federal government couldn't drive fedex and ups out of business if they wanted to?
Privatizing the post office would mean that rural communities stopped getting reasonably priced mail service. The post office has to deliver to everyone, private companies would not. They would take the profitable work and we'd end up completely subsidizing the rural delivery. No one can make a profit delivering mail on a route of 62 stops that takes 130 miles of driving. The law requires the post office deliver to everyone, that's why you still hear the phrase "rural free delivery".
You guys don't seem to actually know much about the post office or the restrictions it operates under.
They still deliver packages.
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