3 ms·

Did the ALMC deliver letters to every single address in the United States? I don't think they did. They weren't trying to "compete" with the USPS so much as ski

Did the ALMC deliver letters to every single address in the United States? I don't think they did. They weren't trying to "compete" with the USPS so much as skim off the profitable routes.

skrebbel 7y ago
How is that not competition?
- mikojan 7y ago
  It's as if in the beginning of a marathon you were to sprint ahead of Eliud Kipchoge - stop - exclaim: "I beat you!" You're not competing. It's monkey business.
- kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
  Let's say you start a power company in the same area as I, a public power utility. The board of utilities says that as a regulated monopoly I have to provide power to every parcel within the regulated area. I charge more than the average cost+ rate so that, on the whole, the denser areas that require less infrastructure can subsidize the less dense rural areas where individuals may require kilometers of dedicated transmission line to service their location. But you come along and charge less (or give power away), but you only do so in areas where it is either profitable or minimally loss-making. >but Spooner dropped his rates even lower -- delivering many letters for free. And you don't do this to run a competing enterprise, but to make a socio-economic/political point. So all of my customers in the limited areas that you serve, naturally, switch to you. But the areas you choose to serve, the densely-populated ones, are the areas that I need to fulfill my mission of delivering electricity to everyone. No longer able to subsidize sparsely-populated areas, I either have to raise rates or give up. "Well that's just the free market" is baloney. A utility's purpose is to serve its population. A mail service's purpose is to deliver letters to everyone. In countries where postal service is "privatized" there is still only one letter delivery service-- it's just run by a board instead of the government. And those "privatized" postal services still have a universal service mandate, required by the law that privatized the formally nationalized entities. As an aside, the UK's Royal Mail was privatized a couple of years ago. It was sold off at bargain-basement prices, ripping off the taxpayers, to investors who just happened, coincidentally, to be donors to politicians who were in charge at the time. Its "universal service" mandate expires next year. We'll see how the FrEe MaRkEt handles universal service when not forced to by law. The American Letter Mail Company wasn't competition. It was a vanity project launched for political purposes that wasn't even in the same game as the USPO, much less in competition with it.
amluto 7y ago
The USPS does not deliver to every address in the US. I don’t know what specifically causes the USPS to deliver to a specific area, but there are entire incorporated cities, some with reasonably large population and density, that don’t receive mail at all except to the local post office. Even UPS and FedEx’s low-cost all-but-the-last-mile services regularly lose packages because they hand them off to the USPS.
- macintux 7y ago
  I was surprised to discover you're correct. Here's a look at that: https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/service-not-available-usps-mail-delivery-limited-may-think/ https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/service-not-available-us...
syshum 7y ago
>>so much as skim off the profitable routes. They were not even trying to do that, Lysander formed the company with the expressed purpose that the government would sue him. he wanted to get the monopoly protection law for the USPS ruled unconstitutional

Did the ALMC deliver letters to every single address in the United States? I don't think they did. They weren't trying to "compete" with the USPS so much as skim off the profitable routes.

skrebbel 7y ago

How is that not competition?

mikojan 7y ago
It's as if in the beginning of a marathon you were to sprint ahead of Eliud Kipchoge - stop - exclaim: "I beat you!" You're not competing. It's monkey business.
kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
Let's say you start a power company in the same area as I, a public power utility. The board of utilities says that as a regulated monopoly I have to provide power to every parcel within the regulated area. I charge more than the average cost+ rate so that, on the whole, the denser areas that require less infrastructure can subsidize the less dense rural areas where individuals may require kilometers of dedicated transmission line to service their location. But you come along and charge less (or give power away), but you only do so in areas where it is either profitable or minimally loss-making. >but Spooner dropped his rates even lower -- delivering many letters for free. And you don't do this to run a competing enterprise, but to make a socio-economic/political point. So all of my customers in the limited areas that you serve, naturally, switch to you. But the areas you choose to serve, the densely-populated ones, are the areas that I need to fulfill my mission of delivering electricity to everyone. No longer able to subsidize sparsely-populated areas, I either have to raise rates or give up. "Well that's just the free market" is baloney. A utility's purpose is to serve its population. A mail service's purpose is to deliver letters to everyone. In countries where postal service is "privatized" there is still only one letter delivery service-- it's just run by a board instead of the government. And those "privatized" postal services still have a universal service mandate, required by the law that privatized the formally nationalized entities. As an aside, the UK's Royal Mail was privatized a couple of years ago. It was sold off at bargain-basement prices, ripping off the taxpayers, to investors who just happened, coincidentally, to be donors to politicians who were in charge at the time. Its "universal service" mandate expires next year. We'll see how the FrEe MaRkEt handles universal service when not forced to by law. The American Letter Mail Company wasn't competition. It was a vanity project launched for political purposes that wasn't even in the same game as the USPO, much less in competition with it.

amluto 7y ago

The USPS does not deliver to every address in the US. I don’t know what specifically causes the USPS to deliver to a specific area, but there are entire incorporated cities, some with reasonably large population and density, that don’t receive mail at all except to the local post office. Even UPS and FedEx’s low-cost all-but-the-last-mile services regularly lose packages because they hand them off to the USPS.

macintux 7y ago
I was surprised to discover you're correct. Here's a look at that: https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/service-not-available-usps-mail-delivery-limited-may-think/ https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/service-not-available-us...

syshum 7y ago

>>so much as skim off the profitable routes. They were not even trying to do that, Lysander formed the company with the expressed purpose that the government would sue him. he wanted to get the monopoly protection law for the USPS ruled unconstitutional