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Although the USPS is the only government service that actually makes money, it only does so because it is a monopoly. Some of your points seem like they would w

by duck 16y ago

Although the USPS is the only government service that actually makes money, it only does so because it is a monopoly. Some of your points seem like they would work and/or nice to have, but in the end, I think it would be a failure because of how inefficient they are. Plus at least half of the people want private services because they trust them more. One recent example that I have to share - my wife and I just got back a Christmas card last week that we sent out this past December. The address/postage were correct, but it seems like the previous owner of our friends house had a forwarding address setup and it somehow screwed up delivery. My wife was angry that we just got it back and I was amazed that they hadn't lost it in the last nine month.

winternett 16y ago
Haha, nice one. I think the USPS could provide a point-to point printing service where users would go to post offices and run their letters through a secure, encrypted scanning device, their mail could be emailed to the location their mail is addressed to and then printed out onto official stationary or special stock for cards etc... The email could then be locally distributed from regional offices, reducing delivery time, and paper; mail could be tracked easily because it could be linked to the sender's email address, and it could be re-routed easily if errors occur (as in your Christmas card example) There are so many ways the USPS could win by implementing email, and we, as mail senders would benefit immensely from the change also. Easy to use scan/print devices could easily be made to link users to the USPS to allow faxes via email or point-to-point mail delivery without going to post offices, your local post office would have a lot more space for an Internet Cafe. The mail system is unreliable now because its technically bankrupt, but I firmly believe if this kind of reorganization should have happened years ago, if someone there had that kind of vision earlier the USPS would be thriving today instead of talking about closing on Saturdays... Sounds like a solidly "untapped" start-up opportunity, no?
- zapmail 16y ago
  Already been tried, and failed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail

by duck 16y ago

winternett 16y ago

Haha, nice one. I think the USPS could provide a point-to point printing service where users would go to post offices and run their letters through a secure, encrypted scanning device, their mail could be emailed to the location their mail is addressed to and then printed out onto official stationary or special stock for cards etc... The email could then be locally distributed from regional offices, reducing delivery time, and paper; mail could be tracked easily because it could be linked to the sender's email address, and it could be re-routed easily if errors occur (as in your Christmas card example) There are so many ways the USPS could win by implementing email, and we, as mail senders would benefit immensely from the change also. Easy to use scan/print devices could easily be made to link users to the USPS to allow faxes via email or point-to-point mail delivery without going to post offices, your local post office would have a lot more space for an Internet Cafe. The mail system is unreliable now because its technically bankrupt, but I firmly believe if this kind of reorganization should have happened years ago, if someone there had that kind of vision earlier the USPS would be thriving today instead of talking about closing on Saturdays... Sounds like a solidly "untapped" start-up opportunity, no?

zapmail 16y ago
Already been tried, and failed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail