
Going Anti-Postal (2012) - Tomte
http://thehumanist.com/magazine/march-april-2012/up-front/going-anti-postal
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matt2000
It seems to me that the postal system has become little more than a subsidized
marketing channel that is difficult to unsubscribe from, and a lazy
communication choice for the most inefficient companies. It should at the very
least be priced based on the costs of operating it. In it's current subsidized
form it produces incentives to keep using it and makes electronic alternatives
seem more expensive.

For environmental, business efficiency, and personal reasons it seems like we
would be better off receiving far less physical mail.

~~~
jurassic
Maybe you should reread the article. It plainly says that the USPS is not
subsidized.

~~~
matt2000
I'm pretty sure the article is incorrect on that topic, in that the postal
service receives indirect subsidies that some estimate to be worth $18B a
year: [http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-
service/](http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/)

I'm sure you could argue with the dollar amount estimate, but not that it
isn't a form of subsidy.

However, one thing everyone agrees on is that most of the mail I receive
sucks. :)

~~~
boomboomsubban
The dollar amount is preposterous and I don't see how those are subsidies that
encourage physical marketing.

~~~
vivekd
18 billion is the correct amount

[https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&rlz=1C1C...](https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA706CA706&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=usps+subsidies)

~~~
boomboomsubban
That's not proof, that's a number of different stories using the same crappy
report.

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jlcx
This article seems to be missing something important: the postal service is
still subsidized by the federal government, even if there isn't a direct
transfer of taxpayer money.

The mail I receive through USPS is ~90% unwanted (maybe more, if you go by
weight), despite my ongoing efforts to "go paperless" and opt out of marketing
mail. If I could stop this constant flow of junk, I would gladly pay UPS/FedEx
twice as much money to deliver the small amount of mail that I actually care
about.

~~~
treehau5
The USPS is greatly subsidized because of these print advertisements. If they
did not exist, you would not get your mail, or it would cost like 10 bucks to
send a letter. Priority Mail for 5.95? Try 25.95.

There's a reason why it costs 11 dollars and some change to ship a small box
with UPS/FedEx -- that's just the cost of shipping.

We are so blind to the true cost of shipping. What would be better is if we
got rid of UPS and FedEx, in my opinion.

~~~
ghaff
I was with you until the last sentence. Why on earth would we want to get rid
of competition that has driven a lot of the innovation in the
shipping/logistics space?

~~~
treehau5
Well, I will preface and just say it's my own opinion, and I don't know too
much, but my thinking goes something like this -- as you said, the innovation
has already happened. There's really nothing left to innovate. As far as I
see, FedEx and UPS aren't working on driverless technologies or drone
delivery, that would be Google, Amazon, etc. Also, because we have 3 or 4
select giant online retailers, and then the giant big box stores that have the
onus to pressure the USPS to innovate. It would drive down costs for everyone
on a whole, as well as the retailers. Anywhere up to 80% of the cost of
physical goods is transportation, and about half of that is on that last mile.
The added benefit of the USPS being a federal agency (well maybe not so much
with Trump), we could pressure the politicians to ensure customers are getting
good service.

~~~
benchaney
>The added benefit of the USPS being a federal agency (well maybe not so much
with Trump), we could pressure the politicians to ensure customers are getting
good service.

Please tell me this it's a joke.

~~~
treehau5
When you start being cynical and think democratic processes are a joke, then
yes, they won't work. But I refuse to give in to cynicism. These agencies are
to operate for the public benefit.

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ouid
the idea that mail provides any functional redundancy over the internet is
based on a scenario in which the government censors some kind of content that
a person requested?

That person would then ostensibly, through a subsidized mail service, be able
to send the original purveyor of that content a letter, requesting a facsimile
of the webpage they were requesting, and then that provider would send such a
facsimile to the requester.

Or perhaps they mean some sort of other redundancy?

