5 ms·

You seem to be disconnected from rural life completely. Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication w

You seem to be disconnected from rural life completely. Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends. Remember, broadband never actually got rolled out everywhere like phones did(hint: one was considered a vital utility)

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends. All of those things can be done on the internet and don't require broadband. Also, how many times a year do you have to file your taxes, if you really want to do it that way?
- jackyinger 6y ago
  My brother bought a rural place that doesn’t have any internet whatsoever, and it’s not that far out in the sticks. If internet access is needed to interact with the government/banks/etc, we have to do better to provide it to rural folks.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    You can get a phone line basically anywhere for the same reason you can get mail there, and if you can get a phone line then you can get dial-up, which doesn't get you YouTube but it does get you email and online banking and all of those sorts of things.
    - kitotik 6y ago
      So, “let them eat cake”.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        How is that not a completely viable solution? Have you actually used dial up? It's terrible slow compared to broadband but a whole lot faster than mailing a letter.
    - RedShift1 6y ago
      Yes, dial up is technically still internet... But do you really get internet that way? Websites these days are made for broadband, some of them coming in at a few MB just to get to the login screen. Plus you gotta turn off all non-essential internet communication in Windows (telemetry, updates, ...) or that 4 kB/s you get are lost to that. If you're paying by the minute it's going to get expensive real fast.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Its purpose isn't to be real internet, its purpose is just to do what the postal service does. It doesn't matter if cnn.com has 500MB of javascript because you're not going there, you're just doing email and banking. And nobody pays by the minute anymore.
        RedShift1 6y ago
        But even those banking and webmail sites are in the order of megabytes.
        orwin 6y ago
        You assume that all these people have AC current. I know for a fact that at least half a dozen american in West Virginia (lincoln county) get there only electricity with solar panels. Yes, they can access their emails thanks to the public library, but how much longer this public service will stay open?
    - kitotik 6y ago
      What are they using to connect to these services? An up to date windows 10 laptop? A MacBook? You are making a lot of assumptions about a lot of people. Even on a completely updated, modern machine try throttling your bandwidth to 56k and paying your bills via your banks website.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        "Up to date"? The latest version of Windows 10 can technically run on hardware older than anybody would have any interest in using. Like late 1990s or so. Anybody can get a much newer PC than that, like an early Core i5, for around $50-$100, which someone might actually want to use. Dial up is slow. But if that's the problem you want to solve then how do you do it by subsidizing the postal service?
      - sio8ohPi 6y ago
        I just paid my credit card bill at 50k down/20k up. It's fine. Took about half an hour, but I'm browsing HN (also throttled) in this tab so it's not too inconvenient. You could also read a book or cook or something.
  - jdxcode 6y ago
    Would it be possible to take half the 70B that we’re paying USPS and quickly build out fixed wireless service to at least the lower 48? I don’t know myself, but it seems within reason to me.
- aerovistae 6y ago
  Yeah, sorry man, but you're dead wrong. As he said, you're really disconnected from reality here. "All those things can be done electronically" -- lol. You must not have interacted with many government agencies.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    You can do your taxes electronically, I've done it. You can have your social security check direct deposited. "Bills and communication" is your bank website and email, not a government agency. All those things can be done electronically.
    - aerovistae 6y ago
      I think you're being willfully obtuse, so there isn't much point to trying to help you understand. You're too stuck on the singular point of whether it's physically possible for something to be done electronically, and ignoring every other factor.
jdxcode 6y ago
If starlink gets off the ground as promised broadband will be a solved problem. I feel like the most likely scenario right now is it will take on a limited form of its current self, maybe delivery once per week? Much higher postage?
- kitotik 6y ago
  Lots of things could happen, but likely not by Q3 when they are projected to run out of money.
jariel 6y ago
"Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends." A somewhat higher postage rate would not affect this that much, and no, there are not that many people always sending letters, and broadband isn't required to pay bills. The vast, vast majority of mail (even bills sent etc.) is completely wasted, it would be incredibly more efficient to dump it in lieu of sending 'only the mail that is needed'.
sio8ohPi 6y ago
> social security checks, taxes, bills Sounds like we could go to weekly or even bimontly delivery for all of these. > communication with family and friends My grandmother had a telephone growing up deep in rural Kentucky 80 years ago. It's 2020. Get with the times.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends. All of those things can be done on the internet and don't require broadband. Also, how many times a year do you have to file your taxes, if you really want to do it that way?

jackyinger 6y ago
My brother bought a rural place that doesn’t have any internet whatsoever, and it’s not that far out in the sticks. If internet access is needed to interact with the government/banks/etc, we have to do better to provide it to rural folks.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  You can get a phone line basically anywhere for the same reason you can get mail there, and if you can get a phone line then you can get dial-up, which doesn't get you YouTube but it does get you email and online banking and all of those sorts of things.
  - kitotik 6y ago
    So, “let them eat cake”.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      How is that not a completely viable solution? Have you actually used dial up? It's terrible slow compared to broadband but a whole lot faster than mailing a letter.
  - RedShift1 6y ago
    Yes, dial up is technically still internet... But do you really get internet that way? Websites these days are made for broadband, some of them coming in at a few MB just to get to the login screen. Plus you gotta turn off all non-essential internet communication in Windows (telemetry, updates, ...) or that 4 kB/s you get are lost to that. If you're paying by the minute it's going to get expensive real fast.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Its purpose isn't to be real internet, its purpose is just to do what the postal service does. It doesn't matter if cnn.com has 500MB of javascript because you're not going there, you're just doing email and banking. And nobody pays by the minute anymore.
      - RedShift1 6y ago
        But even those banking and webmail sites are in the order of megabytes.
      - orwin 6y ago
        You assume that all these people have AC current. I know for a fact that at least half a dozen american in West Virginia (lincoln county) get there only electricity with solar panels. Yes, they can access their emails thanks to the public library, but how much longer this public service will stay open?
  - kitotik 6y ago
    What are they using to connect to these services? An up to date windows 10 laptop? A MacBook? You are making a lot of assumptions about a lot of people. Even on a completely updated, modern machine try throttling your bandwidth to 56k and paying your bills via your banks website.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      "Up to date"? The latest version of Windows 10 can technically run on hardware older than anybody would have any interest in using. Like late 1990s or so. Anybody can get a much newer PC than that, like an early Core i5, for around $50-$100, which someone might actually want to use. Dial up is slow. But if that's the problem you want to solve then how do you do it by subsidizing the postal service?
    - sio8ohPi 6y ago
      I just paid my credit card bill at 50k down/20k up. It's fine. Took about half an hour, but I'm browsing HN (also throttled) in this tab so it's not too inconvenient. You could also read a book or cook or something.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Would it be possible to take half the 70B that we’re paying USPS and quickly build out fixed wireless service to at least the lower 48? I don’t know myself, but it seems within reason to me.
aerovistae 6y ago
Yeah, sorry man, but you're dead wrong. As he said, you're really disconnected from reality here. "All those things can be done electronically" -- lol. You must not have interacted with many government agencies.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  You can do your taxes electronically, I've done it. You can have your social security check direct deposited. "Bills and communication" is your bank website and email, not a government agency. All those things can be done electronically.
  - aerovistae 6y ago
    I think you're being willfully obtuse, so there isn't much point to trying to help you understand. You're too stuck on the singular point of whether it's physically possible for something to be done electronically, and ignoring every other factor.

jdxcode 6y ago

If starlink gets off the ground as promised broadband will be a solved problem. I feel like the most likely scenario right now is it will take on a limited form of its current self, maybe delivery once per week? Much higher postage?

kitotik 6y ago
Lots of things could happen, but likely not by Q3 when they are projected to run out of money.

jariel 6y ago

"Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends." A somewhat higher postage rate would not affect this that much, and no, there are not that many people always sending letters, and broadband isn't required to pay bills. The vast, vast majority of mail (even bills sent etc.) is completely wasted, it would be incredibly more efficient to dump it in lieu of sending 'only the mail that is needed'.

sio8ohPi 6y ago

> social security checks, taxes, bills Sounds like we could go to weekly or even bimontly delivery for all of these. > communication with family and friends My grandmother had a telephone growing up deep in rural Kentucky 80 years ago. It's 2020. Get with the times.