The US Postal Service isn't in the business of delivering mail and hasn't been in a long, long time. In the words of a former US Postmaster General, their customers are "the 400 or so direct advertisers who send bulk mail". They're a spam company. Arguably the first spam company ever.
But they do have a 250k strong union which is a very reliable voting bloc, which is the most important thing. New excuses will be invented to keep them around as circumstances require that.
>It would save money on the last mile delivery. And speed up delivery to a matter of hours.
A host of niche but useful services like election mail, delivery of official documents, and prescriptions. They'll never add up to the volume or economic profitability of junk mail, but they have inherent value – the argument against them is economic feasibility.
Sorry, it was lost in the 100 pounds of spam they deliver to my house every year. If they even do what you claim (if), they undermine that with their true priority... junk mail.
>They'll never add up to the volume or economic profitability of junk mail,
That profitability comes at the expense of our privacy, irritation, costs to dispose of (in a landfill) the trash, and our ability to be reasonably notified of those same official documents you mentioned above.
You don't even know why you want the US mail to continue, but you're scared that if it stopped bad things would happen. They have virtually no value whatsoever, and whatever infinitesimal value remains is sabotaged by their obnoxious spamming enterprise.
>When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the postmaster general, they were joined by the USPS’ general counsel and chief of digital strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.'” Further, “You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.'”
> You don't even know why you want the US mail to continue, but you're scared that if it stopped bad things would happen. They have virtually no value whatsoever, and whatever infinitesimal value remains is sabotaged by their obnoxious spamming enterprise.
That's exactly what my comment mentioned: I know why I want the US Mail to continue, and I know the contradictions inherent in that. I don't think paraphrasing "you don't know what you're talking about" is particularly warranted here.
And yes, they do that: I live in a state with widespread voting by mail, I receive prescriptions by mail, and I just received my Real ID.
Do you really not understand the value to a democratic government of having a direct means of sending a message or physical item to every single member of the society without having that be mediated by a private for profit company?
> Do you really not understand the value to a democratic government of having a direct means of sending a message
What does that have to do with the US Postal Service? I understand this problem perfectly, I've thought about it for many cumulative hours over the last 10 or 15 years. I follow the news stories.
>When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the postmaster general, they were joined by the USPS’ general counsel and chief of digital strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.'” Further, “You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.'”
The postal service, obviously, is capable of transmitting messages and packages.
If you understand the problem perfectly what’s your solution for a system that accomplishes that in a way that’s not at the whim of some monopolistic corporate entity.
Posting a link to an article describing how they successfully avoided an attempt by the sociopathic Silicon Valley mob to privatize the service isn’t exactly convincing.
No I don’t want fucking Peter Thiel to have anything to do with delivering my mail to me, thanks.
> The postal service, obviously, is capable of transmitting messages and packages.
So is the New York Philhmaronic Orchestra and the Cincinnati Zoo. That they are capable of these things is irrelevant. They don't do these things. Which, it turns out, is also pretty much true of the US Mail.
>If you understand the problem perfectly what’s your solution for a system that accomplishes that
Best I can tell, that doesn't happen to any great degree at the moment anyway. So why make a fuss that it would continue to not happen?
>that’s not at the whim of some monopolistic corporate entity.
How does that not describe the US Postal Service?
>Posting a link to an article describing how they successfully avoided an attempt by the sociopathic Silicon Valley mob to privatize the service
If that's what you take from the article, then nothing reasonable I would say could ever convince you. You're more concerned with maintaining this monster at all costs. I have no idea why. I don't even think I really care.
>No I don’t want fucking Peter Thiel to have anything to do with delivering my mail to me, thanks.
What mail? What actual, honest to go mail have you received in the last 36 months? The only mail I've received was an overdue notice (allegedly) for a credit card that after changing their billing information the auto-pay disconnected and they didn't send the notice to my email as they claimed they would with me having signed up for paperless billing. Maybe they did send that, who the fuck knows... buried in tends of pounds of direct mail advertisement.
Why the fuck that the "save the Earth" crowd would want to pay out of their own pocket to landfill this garbage, over 100 pounds per household per year, I can't even begin to guess. You're irrational.
The postal service can deliver anything from a letter up to a decent sized package to anywhere in the country in a couple days at a very reasonable cost. And unlike your nonsensical reference points of the zoo or an orchestra they do in fact do this millions of times a day.
The ability to do that is a core function of government and a basic building block of society that was so fundamental it was written into the constitution.
You seem to not need it or not like it. That’s fine and having that opinion is your right.
But pretending not to understand the concept (and really dwelling on some story about obviously predatory people who have destroying our government so we can be ruled by corporations as their literal stated life goal) is what’s giving the lie to this conversation as not being in good faith.
>And unlike your nonsensical reference points of the zoo or an orchestra they do in fact do this millions of times a day.
Facts not in evidence. It seems very improbable that they deliver "millions of letters per day". It's been many years since most bills or bill payments have been delivered that way (and notice that I'm not being stingy in defining what "letters" means).
>The ability to do that is a core function of government
In the 18th century, perhaps. Not in the 21st. Time to disband the pony express.
>and a basic building block of society
Nothing about our current society relies on this. Not even for nostalgic reasons.
>that was so fundamental it was written into the constitution.
So was the third amendment.
>is what’s giving the lie to this conversation as not being in good faith.
That's fine. You can pretend that it's not in good faith, but it just reminds me that there's no need for discourse with people like yourself, things need to be fixed despite you, without your consent, and ignoring your protests. The future may become unpleasant.
But they do have a 250k strong union which is a very reliable voting bloc, which is the most important thing. New excuses will be invented to keep them around as circumstances require that.
>It would save money on the last mile delivery. And speed up delivery to a matter of hours.
Delivery of what?