[OT] Postal services (was: better Internet)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Seth Cohn <sethcohn at gnuhampshire.org> wrote:
> USPS is a disaster too.  When you really want a package delivered
> cheap and fast and accurate, you go FedEx or UPS.

  Fast and accurate, yes.  Cheap?  No.  For that people bitch about
the rising price of stamps, First Class Mail is still an order of
magnitude cheaper than everybody else.  You can argue that's because
the USPS has an economy of scale that the others don't, due to their
"special position", but that doesn't change the fact that they're
cheaper.

> The only reason they don't do 'normal' mail is because they aren't to, by law.

  Independent companies are prohibited from delivering to "US Mail"
boxes.  To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing keeping people
from mailing all their correspondence in FexEx envelopes delivered to
someone's doorstep, or an independent mailbox.  I'm sure you send all
your letters that way, right?  :)

  FWIW, I think independent companies should be allowed to deliver to
US Mail boxes, and nation-wide government subsidies for the USPS
should be phased out.  I think granting special privilege to the USPS
made sense in the past, but times have changed.  I think independent
post is viable with today's technology and infrastructure.  Let the
USPS compete, and success or fail, on their own merits.  If USPS can't
compete, things like address maintenance (ZIP codes, etc.) could be
done by a smaller, proper government agency.  Extremely rural areas
may or may not deserve subsidies to maintain some kind of service, but
if they do, it should be done on a much smaller scale.

-- Ben