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The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

365 points by Firebrand 6y ago

armitron 6y ago
Having lived in four different US states and in a number of European countries (currently resident in Germany), all I can say is good riddance. USPS is by far the worst mail service I have ever encountered. It's so bad that there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that one can do a lot better, assuming one is allowed to compete. And even though they proudly say they receive NO money from the federal government, they do receive subsidies in the hundreds of millions.
- jdm2212 6y ago
  What do you find lacking in USPS? My experience with other countries is Israel and Russia's postal systems, which are both notoriously bad at actually delivering mail. USPS doesn't ever seem to lose my mail, and stuff gets to where I send it in ~3 days, so I've always been a happy customer.
  - armitron 6y ago
    What they don't seem to lose is priority mail (I'm assuming it's actually tracked in a way that counts). They have lost plenty of my regular mail. Not to mention consistently misdelivering my mail to other mailboxes. One time, I had to escalate all the way to the region supervisor before I found someone that would actually hear me out. The general attitude seems to be one of incompetence and total indifference.
  - schnable 6y ago
    USPS is a disaster in Philly. Mail and packages don't get delivered, the tracking is a lie ("attempted delivery" when they haven't etc.), and it's impossible to get any customer service at all because the the escalation path is to a local postmaster with a full voicemail inbox.
    - loeg 6y ago
      Ah, sounds like Fedex and DHL in Seattle.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  All of the other major delivery services in the US (UPS, FedEx, DHL, Ontrac) are horrible and far worse than the USPS. And without the USPS to compete against, they'd be even worse.
  - Matticus_Rex 6y ago
    Worse in what way? I've always had better experiences with every one of their competitors.
    - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
      UPS, FedEx, DHL etc., when they aren't just completely scummy (lying about delivering something when they haven't; lying about delivery charges), take far longer to deliver packages and often leave them in completely arbitrary places - in the middle of the driveway, for instance. Essentially none of the major commercial delivery services in the US seem to know anything about actually delivering packages.
    - loeg 6y ago
      USPS has locked mailboxes at the curb (in cities). In apartment buildings, the boxes may even be inside the building. The other deliverers don't do that. I've never had a USPS package stolen, because they either deliver it to the lockbox or to you. UPS/Fedex/FBA/DHL just drop it in front of my house and don't even bother ringing the doorbell. It rains here a good amount and if you don't notice your ghost package fast, maybe it gets soaked through. Fedex has lied to me multiple times about attempting delivery on days they never did.
  - RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
    To say nothing of the fact that other delivery services frequently rely upon USPS for last-mile delivery in more rural (read: less- or un-profitable) areas, and those areas would simply not be served by a privatized postal service.
    - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  The USPS offers a unique combination of affordability and reliability that simply cannot be matched by the private sector. Yes, it is subsidized. The reason is that being able to send and receive mail cheaply and reliably is the cornerstone of our society and our economic system.
  - ralph84 6y ago
    I guess maybe you haven't enabled electronic statements for your accounts or something, but for me 99% of what I get from USPS is junk mail or online shopping deliveries. Not clear why either of those need to be subsidized.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      They're not subsidized. USPS is required by law to pay its own way. This is a common misconception about USPS that is simply not true. When people talk about International Mail being "subsidized" they're talking about EG treaty negotiations with China that force the USPS to receive international packages from China at significantly below cost. They then have to pass those costs onto the US consumer.
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      Except demanding that all people in the US to be reliant on the successful use and ownership of a sufficiently reliable computing device is a very real form of discrimination. Arguments of cheapening electronics can be made, but just the issues that many people are having with remote learning is pretty strong evidence to the contrary.
      - ralph84 6y ago
        Subsidizing access to computing devices would be much more beneficial to society than subsidizing junk mail and online shopping.
        binsh 6y ago
        What is your problem with the USPS? You've been refuted several times in this thread, but you keep repeating blatant falsehoods.
- Cheyana 6y ago
  I can counter that. Here in Arizona, I have sent packages probably a few dozen times in 20 years and have never had an issue, and the post office near where I work is busy almost all day with people sending things, so their problem might just be consistency across all sites. Some sites may not do enough business to support their staff while others may take in more than enough. Maybe they just need to reduce their footprint, and close underutilized sites.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I think it's a slippery slope in eroding public services in favor of private corporations, instead of improving these systems we shouldn't let them die and allow monopolies to run rampant and become less and less competitive.
- hendiatris 6y ago
  Please provide more detail. I find the USPS to be one of the best things about this country. Every morning I get an email with photos of the mail I will receive, and a listing of the packages that are coming my way. I can’t remember the last time they’ve ever lost anything of mine. I’m sure not everyone’s experience is like mine - I’m curious how they can be so bad that they create a sense of loathing.
  - armitron 6y ago
    As I said, regularly losing mail. Regularly misdelivering mail. A lot of effort to get someone to even acknowledge the problem or even myself. My mailbox stuffed with junk mail all the time (even if I have permanent sticker telling them not to do so). I've even talked to the USPS delivery person and told her not to do so. Next week, same issue. Rinse, repeat. I've never, ever, ever had a problem with Fedex or UPS. They've been 100% professional and everytime I had to interact with them either on the phone or in a store, I always got good service. With USPS, this was the rare exception rather than the rule.
    - ZekeSulastin 6y ago
      Speaking from my anecdata on both the retail customer and business customer side, if you've never had a problem with a given carrier you are damned lucky and should probably go buy lottery tickets.
      - anfilt 6y ago
        I have lived in multiple places in the US, and never had problems with USPS. I have had troubles with Fedex, UPS, and DHL though.
    - binsh 6y ago
      It sounds like you personally have a beef with your mail carrier(s) and/or your local post office. Which is fine, but that doesn't mean the entire system is broken. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's a little selfish of you to celebrate the destruction of a government program that a lot of people who don't make FAANG salaries depend on for medication and bill paying. Seriously, where is the compassion?
- klyrs 6y ago
  It's way worse in Canada. Similar arrangement where politicians love to gut its budget for short-term gains, and it lives in a weird category somewhere between business and utility. But delivery times (and reliability) are atrocious here in Canada. In the US, I mailed something to my mom across town, and she got it the same day that I put it in the mailbox. I rarely saw a letter delivery take more than 2-3 days. Here in Canada, it may take over a week to send mail in the same province. Takes over a month when my mom sends me a letter from the US. IMHO, they shouldn't get subsidies. They should be a public utility. They provide a necessary channel of communication between citizens and their goverment: taxes, passports, ballots, voter registration, etc. happen through USPS. In my experience (admittedly, I've been in Canada for a decade, so this is probably out of date) they've been much more reliable than any other shipping service, and I don't think any other private carrier does letter mail.
- spfzero 6y ago
  Just anecdote, but I probably mail about 100+ packages a year through USPS, about 40% to international addresses. Never had one fail to deliver. I always use USPS to ship, because it is reliable and the fees are reasonable. Also receive lots of documents, periodicals, and packages through USPS, never had a problem there either, always in the mailbox or right at the front door. Of course I'd like to skip the junk mail. USPS seems technically up-to-date as well, more or less. I can schedule pickups on-line, as well as buy and print postage. No complaints.
ngcc_hk 6y ago
I would say that losing to China so that it is cheaper to post from China to USA than from local to USA is a big deal. If they can get it cheaper than DHL, but slower and still hold onto the great ride of goods moving ... Just if
InTheArena 6y ago
The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service. That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the case of really valuable stuff). See: https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-office-killed-digital-mail/ https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-of... The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable government job for people. There needs to be significant value that others cannot meet. The reformation that is needed is being blocked. For example, how about allowing me to pay $5 a month to not have you deliver crap into my inbox? Or to fully digitize the process, so I don't have a recycle bin full of crappy products, alumni magazines, and pizza coupons that I don't need or want. Oh. And stop selling my data to third parties as well. Looking at you NCOA database.
- thiagocesar 6y ago
  For a moment there you had me wondering why the post office was delivering canned meat.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Having a last-mile delivery method available for every corner of the continental USA is enough of a raison d'être. That's value for the country. Advertising is a money maker and it subsidizes the other business. I don't really see a problem with this.
  - tdeck 6y ago
    Not only is it valuable to private citizens, but FedEx and UPS use the postal service for last mile delivery as well. For example here's FedEx: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost/network.html https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost/network...
  - KeepFlying 6y ago
    You have hit on the EXACT reason that the USPS is so critical. There are huge areas of the US which are not serviced by other private delivery services. And even in areas where those services do reach, I imagine the cost is extremely high. People in Barrow, Alaska deserve access to mailing services as much as people in NYC. Without that, there is no reliable way to contact everyone in the US for the purpose of the Census, Voting (where mail-in voting is available), Jury Duty notifications, Selective Service, etc. There are critical government services that still must be run over "snail mail" and to pass that off to a private institution which will not be able to service all areas equally will lead to more inequality.
binarytide 6y ago
tldr: Charles Koch
nickpinkston 6y ago
TL;DR Charles Koch wants to privatize the Post Office. You're so surprised...aren't you? :-) I used to be a libertarian, then got out of it, but I just thought the Kochs were eccentric libertarians. The truth is actually far worse than that. They aren't just political manipulators, but are truly awful people screwing over everyone who gets in their path including their siblings, government officials, employees, etc. Here's some further reading: + Dark Money: Good overview of general Republican big money politics https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307947904/ https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radic... + Sons of Wichita: Koch Brother / family history - it's really crazy how corrupt they are, and it seems to come from Fred Koch really fucking them up as kids. He was like Daniel Plainview + Alex Jones. https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerful/dp/1455518727/ https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerf... + Invisible Hands: Some Pre-Koch Republican big money history - essentially worthless heirs to privately owned extractive fortunes (Scaiffes, Mellons, etc.) had full ability to spend their closely-held businesses money on keeping their monopolies and found libertarian thinkers to help publicly justify low taxes / lax regulations. https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Businessmens-Crusade-Against/dp/0393337669/ https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Businessmens-Crusade-...
Matticus_Rex 6y ago
It's funny how it's painted as malice and conspiracy, while the arguments on the other side are grounded in research and theory. The Kochs are the left's Soros conspiracy.
- baxter001 6y ago
  Is that those two french brothers who tried to publish fake physics papers?
  - catalogia 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff I'm speechless.
bmitc 6y ago
The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism? The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service that definitely should exist and be improved. What's next to kill off? Libraries? Public schools? The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere. They're wonderful institutions. Are they perfect? No. But very few institutions are, and these provide a helpful service to people. We should focus on improving them instead of spending so much money to kill them. I've learned that the USPS has free package pickup since someone is basically guaranteed to be in your neighborhood every day, which has been a wonderful service during this viral breakout. By having USPS pickup my small packages, it keeps me out of their stores away from other people and employees. I simply purchase a label online and schedule the free pickup, next day if it's a weekday. It's a minimum of $11 for UPS to come pickup your package at a residential address, even if they're already coming to your address for another delivery that same day.
- darawk 6y ago
  It's ideological. They believe that the government should not be in the postal business. They probably believe that it's harmful to competition in various ways, and they are probably right in certain narrow contexts.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    The same argument of being harmful to competition could be extended to schools and libraries and <name a service>. It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people. So what if it's harmful to competition? What merit does that have? (These aren't questions for you. They're rhetorical.)
    - usaphp 6y ago
      Probably because your tax money go to support a “broken” business model in their opinion; without asking you if you want to pay for those services. Edit: I am not saying it’s a right thing to do, I am just trying to list a possible reason why billionaires might try to fight against it, per OP question
alextheparrot 6y ago
This is interesting timing, given the recent UPU changes that should help shore up USPS by reducing the losses they experience from international mailings. They estimate that this causes 400M in losses each year [0]. Though, overall, this has been a long arc of slowly trying different ways to gut or kill the program in the last ~40 years. [0] https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Remains-in-the-UPU-but-Changes-Are-Ahead-in-2020.html https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Rem...
teslabox 6y ago
There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business. Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking. What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-postal-savings-bank-infrastructure-that-doesnt-cost-taxpayers-a-dime/ https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013) This piece concludes by suggesting the postal service is being looted so its property portfolio can be sold off.
- llsf 6y ago
  In France, that is one way that the postal service survived. Actually, the banking service is also "universal" (every post office provide the service), allowing very remote places to have banking and postal service in one place. So even in remote places where it is not profitable for <bigBank> to open an office, there are always a post office around. The financial services are broad, bank account, checks, loans, credit cards, stocks/bonds, currency exchange, etc. Another service is notary (the postal office can certify some official papers), civil services (the postal office can process ID/passport renewal), and you can pay your taxes or fines too :) Combined with a solid IT infrastructure, a tiny post office can do a lot, with few employees. A lot more than just delivering spam or even parcel.
- pantaloony 6y ago
  Ah. The property angle suddenly lets all the pieces fall into place. Now it makes sense.
- tdeck 6y ago
  > C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), the company holding the exclusive contract to negotiate sales for the $85 billion postal real estate portfolio, has sold off 52 postal properties for at least $79 million less than their fair market value. Worse, the buyers included its own business partners and shareholders, including Goldman Sachs. CBRE is chaired by Richard C. Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a family Byrne says has a history of accessing public pension funds to make private investments The more I learn about Feinstein the more unhappy I become.
exabrial 6y ago
I can't imagine the number of tons of paper and c02 we would save the planet if we got rid of it. All they do is deliver spam that's thrown away. I fully support selling it off to private companies.
vondur 6y ago
Why does the postal service need to turn a profit? It's a government agency. Are any other government agencies required to be profitable?
- c3534l 6y ago
  It's not so much a government agency as it is a public corporation. In the days when the postal service was founded, large corporations were rare enough that they had to be created and initially funded by the government. Now we have financial markets and concepts that allow for the streamlined creation of large corporations, but it's closer to the modern concept of a utility than anything else.
  - djur 6y ago
    It hasn't always been a public corporation. USPS only dates back to 1970. Previous to that it was the US Post Office Department, a cabinet-level agency. It was reorganized in 1970 in response to a strike: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970
- jessriedel 6y ago
  Yes? I think lots of government agencies that deliver services to paying customers are expected to cover their expenses. It's true that some government activities provide, say, non-excludable public goods using tax money, and so are not expected to collect sufficient revenue through distribution, but other government activities are intended to provide a service that can be valued and efficiently purchased by consumers. For instance, my family's street recently got a public sewer system (to replace septic systems), and the city charged homeowners one-time and recurring fees to cover the expenses of both installation and operation. If the city could not get the homeowners to pay enough to cover the cost of the sewer system, which was a real risk, the system would have been considered a mistake (and a project with similar economic prospects would likely been avoided in the future).
  - runako 6y ago
trts 6y ago
Skimmed this long PDF after getting clickbaited by the headline and it begins with the premise that without the USPS, we would be left only with email >The federal agency plays a crucial role in U.S. supply chains, commerce, and basic communication—which email simply cannot replace—by processing and delivering nearly 500 million pieces of mail on an average day. But I did have a number of questions like, Wouldn't it be bad if we abolished the post office since there's always been one in my neighborhood? Why does this person have a particular issue with a quasi-governmental agency that is a rounding-error in the federal budget? What about the trillions in defense and deficit spending? Isn't 90% of what comes to my mailbox spam that I just forward on to the landfill? Do most other countries have a public postal service? Why or why not. Don't I avoid the post-office at all costs unless there's an automated kiosk that happens not to be out of service? Why is this on Hacker News?
- anonu 6y ago
  > Why is this on Hacker News? It's an interesting topic. It's generated a few 100 comments already proving that. If HN were just about the latest Rust release and some new startup CEO's deep thoughts, I probably wouldn't come here 5x a day
- ip26 6y ago
  Why does this person have a particular issue... No one knows for sure. This person also has issues with other tiny pieces of the federal budget, such as the CPB. Various theories are advanced, such as political strategy (kill mail-in-ballots, NPR is seen as leaning slightly left) or profiteering (the USPS has a large pension fund, perhaps an appealing target for a corporate raid).
bhupy 6y ago
Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1]. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2]. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3]. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4]. I'm also yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the USPS enjoys a monopoly in first class parcel mail. That is to say, sure let's keep USPS state owned / public, but why can't FedEx/UPS/Amazon/DHL compete with the USPS? [1] https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/ https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/ [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=uk https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=... [3] https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag [4] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-srch https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-sr...
- mktk1001 6y ago
  There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    You're being downvoted because most people believe it when FedEx or Amazon or UPS say they serve 100% of Americans. There's no way they would do so if they had to have the same footprint as the USPS. Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports? Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢? Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands? There are post offices so far out in the middle of nowhere that while they have a concrete pad for handicapped parking because it's required by the ADA, no customers ever arrive by car, so there's also hitching posts for people's horses, which is the primary mode of transportation. I don't see Amazon doing that. It'll just say, "Wait 20 years for your mail while we work the bugs out of our super-cool drone delivery service!"
8bitsrule 6y ago
James Buchanan's ideas and Koch money are the subject of Nancy MacLean's 2017 book "Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-chains https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-ch...
- nickff 6y ago
  "Democracy in Chains" is irredeemably flawed, and has been completely discredited by a series of prominent reviewers.[1][2] There are many more reviews which reveal the scope of fabrication in this book, but it suffices to say that the work should be considered 'fiction', perhaps in the 'fantasy' category. [1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502 [2] https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem.. https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem.... [3] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac.. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac....
load 6y ago
It seems like Koch wants to keep pushing consensus to privatize the postal service by weakening funding for it, which is, either intentionally or unintentionally, economically harming it. I'm on the fence over whether 'kill' is the right word for this though.
spiritplumber 6y ago
Postal banking works really well in the countris in which it exists. The best way to help USPS is to use them as your default shipping method: do so.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  why would I want to help the USPS at a cost to me?
  - inetknght 6y ago
    because you're only considering short term monetary cost at the cost of long term benefit
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      how so
      - inetknght 6y ago
        Mail going through the USPS has a right to privacy. Mail through commercial carriers does not. Unfortunately that privacy often doesn't get factored into the cost.
jorblumesea 6y ago
It often feels like the social contract in American society is breaking down. Many of the rich elite in the US care nothing for the common person, and only adhere to their bubble of the wealthy and powerful. Crushing institutions that help people, or blocking the creation of new ones that might, are done so for ideological reasons even if practically speaking they might work or help people out. At some point the wealthy and political in the US might have somewhat acted in the interest of the American people. But now it feels like almost every move is to the detriment of the average person. If things continue like this, America is in real trouble.
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gdubs 6y ago
One of the most memorable passages from Cliff Stoll’s “Silicon Snake Oil” was about the reliability of snail mail. How you could scribble a person’s name on a postcard, mess up a lot of details, and it still manages to get to them.
xyst 6y ago
Haven't finished reading it, but I was not surprised that the Koch family is behind this special interest group. The family has been fucking the US and world long before Trump was elected. They have a history of funding fake climate change science in order to push favorable legislation for the O&G industry. Anything that might benefit society (healthcare, social support, ...), they have fought against or funded a PAC to do their dirty work.
sizzle 6y ago
Why can't the US Gov bail out the USPS like big banks?
- hellotomyrars 6y ago
  Because corporate welfare is good because it'll create jobs and put money in the working man's pocket and anything with social value is a waste/drain on our strained resources and we'll have to raise taxes and you can't do that! /s
rufus_3 6y ago
I hope the billionaire is successful. For some reason every other courier that delivers to my address manages to bring my deliveries right to my doorstep - UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon, GrubHub, local pizza restaurants, etc. all manage to enter my apartment complex, locate my unit, and leave my items right at my door. The only exception is USPS, which consistently leaves a slip in my mailbox pretending that they "had no access" to my apartment, even though the gates are wide open during the daytime when they arrive. Instead of delivering my items, every time I have to drive several miles to the Post Office the next day, mask up for Covid, and wait in the long line to retrieve my packages. Every aspect of my experience with USPS is dissatisfying - they can't be defunded soon enough.
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seizethecheese 6y ago
We are building a just-in-time distribution network on top of USPS (Bottomless - YC W19) We're able to deal with their slowness because we predict demand in advance using data from a smart scale. It's quite astonishing how unreliable USPS is. We frequently see packages get routed to a totally incorrect part of the country, derailing shipments for several days. Also, it seems like even USPS doesn't know when their packages will arrive. The estimates they give are worse at predicting arrival time than just inputing distance into a simple regression!
- nxc18 6y ago
  Do you have any comparisons to other services? I’ve most often seen UPS route things bizarrely and I’ve had several packages delivered a day or two late.
  - seizethecheese 6y ago
    We are USPS only at the moment.
cwhiz 6y ago
I can imagine a future without the USPS. A future where I don’t have a weekly chore of sorting through the spam to decide which to throw away and which to recycle. And a future where I don’t have giant boxes “delivered” into my tiny mailbox that could fit maybe a stack of 25 envelopes. And a future where 20% of packages don’t arrive. I can see why people want to avoid this.
jedberg 6y ago
The USPS missed a golden opportunity in the 90s. Almost no one had an email address in the early 90s. The USPS was so afraid of email they refused to embrace it. They could have been the email address of record for everyone in the US if they just set up a forwarding address for anyone who wanted it. Heck, they could even do it now. Imagine having a free foo@me.us email address that someone could only send to if they paid for it, like the way mail works now. That is the business they should get in to, along with killing all the check cashing places by being a bank for unbanked like they used to be.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  In France the post office (La Poste) did this from 2000. It did have success, in the following years a lot of people used it as their main email service. They even were mandated by the government to automatically provide an account for all school students. But they couldn't keep up with more modern services. Their webmail and storage was laughable compared to Gmail and others, and people moved on. They still operate, but it's basically just for older people who never changed now. Post office companies can't compete with tech giants on email services.
crb002 6y ago
The US Postal Service should be funded like NASA. It can contract out to companies like Amazon - just like NASA contracts to SpaceX.
zeckalpha 6y ago
Can’t they target Amtrak instead?
DevKoala 6y ago
https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ From those figures it looks like > 90% of the USPS throughput benefits the marketing operations of private companies and scammers.
bawana 6y ago
Perhaps we should allow a private arm of the postal service to enter another area important for communication: internet service. As it is now, internet service is restricted to one or two providers in most regions. Prices are ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. And broadband in the US is denied to many low profit areas. Yet we are in a time of COVID sanctions, schooling and working remotely that all rely on the net. Broadband supply needs more competition. The postal service is already delivering snail mail. How is it they were never tapped to run the internet in the US but instead we allow oligarchs to bleed us like Baron Harkonnen in Dune?
- RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
  I would be thrilled to pay USPS as an email provider or ISP, even paying a premium to do so, if they offered comparable service in my area.
anonu 6y ago
Getting rid of the USPS has tremendous national security implications. It's a "network" that doesn't rely on the internet. Imagine we had to deliver a vaccine to everyone within a week. The USPS knows everyone's address and where people live. They would be the go to institution to do this.

365 points by Firebrand 6y ago

Having lived in four different US states and in a number of European countries (currently resident in Germany), all I can say is good riddance. USPS is by far the worst mail service I have ever encountered. It's so bad that there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that one can do a lot better, assuming one is allowed to compete. And even though they proudly say they receive NO money from the federal government, they do receive subsidies in the hundreds of millions.

jdm2212 6y ago
What do you find lacking in USPS? My experience with other countries is Israel and Russia's postal systems, which are both notoriously bad at actually delivering mail. USPS doesn't ever seem to lose my mail, and stuff gets to where I send it in ~3 days, so I've always been a happy customer.
- armitron 6y ago
  What they don't seem to lose is priority mail (I'm assuming it's actually tracked in a way that counts). They have lost plenty of my regular mail. Not to mention consistently misdelivering my mail to other mailboxes. One time, I had to escalate all the way to the region supervisor before I found someone that would actually hear me out. The general attitude seems to be one of incompetence and total indifference.
- schnable 6y ago
  USPS is a disaster in Philly. Mail and packages don't get delivered, the tracking is a lie ("attempted delivery" when they haven't etc.), and it's impossible to get any customer service at all because the the escalation path is to a local postmaster with a full voicemail inbox.
  - loeg 6y ago
    Ah, sounds like Fedex and DHL in Seattle.
_emacsomancer_ 6y ago
All of the other major delivery services in the US (UPS, FedEx, DHL, Ontrac) are horrible and far worse than the USPS. And without the USPS to compete against, they'd be even worse.
- Matticus_Rex 6y ago
  Worse in what way? I've always had better experiences with every one of their competitors.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    UPS, FedEx, DHL etc., when they aren't just completely scummy (lying about delivering something when they haven't; lying about delivery charges), take far longer to deliver packages and often leave them in completely arbitrary places - in the middle of the driveway, for instance. Essentially none of the major commercial delivery services in the US seem to know anything about actually delivering packages.
  - loeg 6y ago
    USPS has locked mailboxes at the curb (in cities). In apartment buildings, the boxes may even be inside the building. The other deliverers don't do that. I've never had a USPS package stolen, because they either deliver it to the lockbox or to you. UPS/Fedex/FBA/DHL just drop it in front of my house and don't even bother ringing the doorbell. It rains here a good amount and if you don't notice your ghost package fast, maybe it gets soaked through. Fedex has lied to me multiple times about attempting delivery on days they never did.
- RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
  To say nothing of the fact that other delivery services frequently rely upon USPS for last-mile delivery in more rural (read: less- or un-profitable) areas, and those areas would simply not be served by a privatized postal service.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
enraged_camel 6y ago
The USPS offers a unique combination of affordability and reliability that simply cannot be matched by the private sector. Yes, it is subsidized. The reason is that being able to send and receive mail cheaply and reliably is the cornerstone of our society and our economic system.
- ralph84 6y ago
  I guess maybe you haven't enabled electronic statements for your accounts or something, but for me 99% of what I get from USPS is junk mail or online shopping deliveries. Not clear why either of those need to be subsidized.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    They're not subsidized. USPS is required by law to pay its own way. This is a common misconception about USPS that is simply not true. When people talk about International Mail being "subsidized" they're talking about EG treaty negotiations with China that force the USPS to receive international packages from China at significantly below cost. They then have to pass those costs onto the US consumer.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    Except demanding that all people in the US to be reliant on the successful use and ownership of a sufficiently reliable computing device is a very real form of discrimination. Arguments of cheapening electronics can be made, but just the issues that many people are having with remote learning is pretty strong evidence to the contrary.
    - ralph84 6y ago
      Subsidizing access to computing devices would be much more beneficial to society than subsidizing junk mail and online shopping.
      - binsh 6y ago
        What is your problem with the USPS? You've been refuted several times in this thread, but you keep repeating blatant falsehoods.
Cheyana 6y ago
I can counter that. Here in Arizona, I have sent packages probably a few dozen times in 20 years and have never had an issue, and the post office near where I work is busy almost all day with people sending things, so their problem might just be consistency across all sites. Some sites may not do enough business to support their staff while others may take in more than enough. Maybe they just need to reduce their footprint, and close underutilized sites.
Avicebron 6y ago
I think it's a slippery slope in eroding public services in favor of private corporations, instead of improving these systems we shouldn't let them die and allow monopolies to run rampant and become less and less competitive.
hendiatris 6y ago
Please provide more detail. I find the USPS to be one of the best things about this country. Every morning I get an email with photos of the mail I will receive, and a listing of the packages that are coming my way. I can’t remember the last time they’ve ever lost anything of mine. I’m sure not everyone’s experience is like mine - I’m curious how they can be so bad that they create a sense of loathing.
- armitron 6y ago
  As I said, regularly losing mail. Regularly misdelivering mail. A lot of effort to get someone to even acknowledge the problem or even myself. My mailbox stuffed with junk mail all the time (even if I have permanent sticker telling them not to do so). I've even talked to the USPS delivery person and told her not to do so. Next week, same issue. Rinse, repeat. I've never, ever, ever had a problem with Fedex or UPS. They've been 100% professional and everytime I had to interact with them either on the phone or in a store, I always got good service. With USPS, this was the rare exception rather than the rule.
  - ZekeSulastin 6y ago
    Speaking from my anecdata on both the retail customer and business customer side, if you've never had a problem with a given carrier you are damned lucky and should probably go buy lottery tickets.
    - anfilt 6y ago
      I have lived in multiple places in the US, and never had problems with USPS. I have had troubles with Fedex, UPS, and DHL though.
  - binsh 6y ago
    It sounds like you personally have a beef with your mail carrier(s) and/or your local post office. Which is fine, but that doesn't mean the entire system is broken. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's a little selfish of you to celebrate the destruction of a government program that a lot of people who don't make FAANG salaries depend on for medication and bill paying. Seriously, where is the compassion?
klyrs 6y ago
It's way worse in Canada. Similar arrangement where politicians love to gut its budget for short-term gains, and it lives in a weird category somewhere between business and utility. But delivery times (and reliability) are atrocious here in Canada. In the US, I mailed something to my mom across town, and she got it the same day that I put it in the mailbox. I rarely saw a letter delivery take more than 2-3 days. Here in Canada, it may take over a week to send mail in the same province. Takes over a month when my mom sends me a letter from the US. IMHO, they shouldn't get subsidies. They should be a public utility. They provide a necessary channel of communication between citizens and their goverment: taxes, passports, ballots, voter registration, etc. happen through USPS. In my experience (admittedly, I've been in Canada for a decade, so this is probably out of date) they've been much more reliable than any other shipping service, and I don't think any other private carrier does letter mail.
spfzero 6y ago
Just anecdote, but I probably mail about 100+ packages a year through USPS, about 40% to international addresses. Never had one fail to deliver. I always use USPS to ship, because it is reliable and the fees are reasonable. Also receive lots of documents, periodicals, and packages through USPS, never had a problem there either, always in the mailbox or right at the front door. Of course I'd like to skip the junk mail. USPS seems technically up-to-date as well, more or less. I can schedule pickups on-line, as well as buy and print postage. No complaints.

ngcc_hk 6y ago

I would say that losing to China so that it is cheaper to post from China to USA than from local to USA is a big deal. If they can get it cheaper than DHL, but slower and still hold onto the great ride of goods moving ... Just if

InTheArena 6y ago

The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service. That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the case of really valuable stuff). See: https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-office-killed-digital-mail/ https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-of... The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable government job for people. There needs to be significant value that others cannot meet. The reformation that is needed is being blocked. For example, how about allowing me to pay $5 a month to not have you deliver crap into my inbox? Or to fully digitize the process, so I don't have a recycle bin full of crappy products, alumni magazines, and pizza coupons that I don't need or want. Oh. And stop selling my data to third parties as well. Looking at you NCOA database.

thiagocesar 6y ago
For a moment there you had me wondering why the post office was delivering canned meat.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Having a last-mile delivery method available for every corner of the continental USA is enough of a raison d'être. That's value for the country. Advertising is a money maker and it subsidizes the other business. I don't really see a problem with this.
- tdeck 6y ago
  Not only is it valuable to private citizens, but FedEx and UPS use the postal service for last mile delivery as well. For example here's FedEx: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost/network.html https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost/network...
- KeepFlying 6y ago
  You have hit on the EXACT reason that the USPS is so critical. There are huge areas of the US which are not serviced by other private delivery services. And even in areas where those services do reach, I imagine the cost is extremely high. People in Barrow, Alaska deserve access to mailing services as much as people in NYC. Without that, there is no reliable way to contact everyone in the US for the purpose of the Census, Voting (where mail-in voting is available), Jury Duty notifications, Selective Service, etc. There are critical government services that still must be run over "snail mail" and to pass that off to a private institution which will not be able to service all areas equally will lead to more inequality.

binarytide 6y ago

tldr: Charles Koch

nickpinkston 6y ago

TL;DR Charles Koch wants to privatize the Post Office. You're so surprised...aren't you? :-) I used to be a libertarian, then got out of it, but I just thought the Kochs were eccentric libertarians. The truth is actually far worse than that. They aren't just political manipulators, but are truly awful people screwing over everyone who gets in their path including their siblings, government officials, employees, etc. Here's some further reading: + Dark Money: Good overview of general Republican big money politics https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307947904/ https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radic... + Sons of Wichita: Koch Brother / family history - it's really crazy how corrupt they are, and it seems to come from Fred Koch really fucking them up as kids. He was like Daniel Plainview + Alex Jones. https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerful/dp/1455518727/ https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerf... + Invisible Hands: Some Pre-Koch Republican big money history - essentially worthless heirs to privately owned extractive fortunes (Scaiffes, Mellons, etc.) had full ability to spend their closely-held businesses money on keeping their monopolies and found libertarian thinkers to help publicly justify low taxes / lax regulations. https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Businessmens-Crusade-Against/dp/0393337669/ https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Businessmens-Crusade-...

Matticus_Rex 6y ago

It's funny how it's painted as malice and conspiracy, while the arguments on the other side are grounded in research and theory. The Kochs are the left's Soros conspiracy.

baxter001 6y ago
Is that those two french brothers who tried to publish fake physics papers?
- catalogia 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff I'm speechless.

bmitc 6y ago

The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism? The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service that definitely should exist and be improved. What's next to kill off? Libraries? Public schools? The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere. They're wonderful institutions. Are they perfect? No. But very few institutions are, and these provide a helpful service to people. We should focus on improving them instead of spending so much money to kill them. I've learned that the USPS has free package pickup since someone is basically guaranteed to be in your neighborhood every day, which has been a wonderful service during this viral breakout. By having USPS pickup my small packages, it keeps me out of their stores away from other people and employees. I simply purchase a label online and schedule the free pickup, next day if it's a weekday. It's a minimum of $11 for UPS to come pickup your package at a residential address, even if they're already coming to your address for another delivery that same day.

darawk 6y ago
It's ideological. They believe that the government should not be in the postal business. They probably believe that it's harmful to competition in various ways, and they are probably right in certain narrow contexts.
- bmitc 6y ago
  The same argument of being harmful to competition could be extended to schools and libraries and <name a service>. It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people. So what if it's harmful to competition? What merit does that have? (These aren't questions for you. They're rhetorical.)
  - usaphp 6y ago
    Probably because your tax money go to support a “broken” business model in their opinion; without asking you if you want to pay for those services. Edit: I am not saying it’s a right thing to do, I am just trying to list a possible reason why billionaires might try to fight against it, per OP question

alextheparrot 6y ago

This is interesting timing, given the recent UPU changes that should help shore up USPS by reducing the losses they experience from international mailings. They estimate that this causes 400M in losses each year [0]. Though, overall, this has been a long arc of slowly trying different ways to gut or kill the program in the last ~40 years. [0] https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Remains-in-the-UPU-but-Changes-Are-Ahead-in-2020.html https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Rem...

teslabox 6y ago

There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business. Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking. What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-postal-savings-bank-infrastructure-that-doesnt-cost-taxpayers-a-dime/ https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013) This piece concludes by suggesting the postal service is being looted so its property portfolio can be sold off.

llsf 6y ago
In France, that is one way that the postal service survived. Actually, the banking service is also "universal" (every post office provide the service), allowing very remote places to have banking and postal service in one place. So even in remote places where it is not profitable for <bigBank> to open an office, there are always a post office around. The financial services are broad, bank account, checks, loans, credit cards, stocks/bonds, currency exchange, etc. Another service is notary (the postal office can certify some official papers), civil services (the postal office can process ID/passport renewal), and you can pay your taxes or fines too :) Combined with a solid IT infrastructure, a tiny post office can do a lot, with few employees. A lot more than just delivering spam or even parcel.
pantaloony 6y ago
Ah. The property angle suddenly lets all the pieces fall into place. Now it makes sense.
tdeck 6y ago
> C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), the company holding the exclusive contract to negotiate sales for the $85 billion postal real estate portfolio, has sold off 52 postal properties for at least $79 million less than their fair market value. Worse, the buyers included its own business partners and shareholders, including Goldman Sachs. CBRE is chaired by Richard C. Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a family Byrne says has a history of accessing public pension funds to make private investments The more I learn about Feinstein the more unhappy I become.

exabrial 6y ago

I can't imagine the number of tons of paper and c02 we would save the planet if we got rid of it. All they do is deliver spam that's thrown away. I fully support selling it off to private companies.

vondur 6y ago

Why does the postal service need to turn a profit? It's a government agency. Are any other government agencies required to be profitable?

c3534l 6y ago
It's not so much a government agency as it is a public corporation. In the days when the postal service was founded, large corporations were rare enough that they had to be created and initially funded by the government. Now we have financial markets and concepts that allow for the streamlined creation of large corporations, but it's closer to the modern concept of a utility than anything else.
- djur 6y ago
  It hasn't always been a public corporation. USPS only dates back to 1970. Previous to that it was the US Post Office Department, a cabinet-level agency. It was reorganized in 1970 in response to a strike: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970
jessriedel 6y ago
Yes? I think lots of government agencies that deliver services to paying customers are expected to cover their expenses. It's true that some government activities provide, say, non-excludable public goods using tax money, and so are not expected to collect sufficient revenue through distribution, but other government activities are intended to provide a service that can be valued and efficiently purchased by consumers. For instance, my family's street recently got a public sewer system (to replace septic systems), and the city charged homeowners one-time and recurring fees to cover the expenses of both installation and operation. If the city could not get the homeowners to pay enough to cover the cost of the sewer system, which was a real risk, the system would have been considered a mistake (and a project with similar economic prospects would likely been avoided in the future).
- runako 6y ago

trts 6y ago

Skimmed this long PDF after getting clickbaited by the headline and it begins with the premise that without the USPS, we would be left only with email >The federal agency plays a crucial role in U.S. supply chains, commerce, and basic communication—which email simply cannot replace—by processing and delivering nearly 500 million pieces of mail on an average day. But I did have a number of questions like, Wouldn't it be bad if we abolished the post office since there's always been one in my neighborhood? Why does this person have a particular issue with a quasi-governmental agency that is a rounding-error in the federal budget? What about the trillions in defense and deficit spending? Isn't 90% of what comes to my mailbox spam that I just forward on to the landfill? Do most other countries have a public postal service? Why or why not. Don't I avoid the post-office at all costs unless there's an automated kiosk that happens not to be out of service? Why is this on Hacker News?

anonu 6y ago
> Why is this on Hacker News? It's an interesting topic. It's generated a few 100 comments already proving that. If HN were just about the latest Rust release and some new startup CEO's deep thoughts, I probably wouldn't come here 5x a day
ip26 6y ago
Why does this person have a particular issue... No one knows for sure. This person also has issues with other tiny pieces of the federal budget, such as the CPB. Various theories are advanced, such as political strategy (kill mail-in-ballots, NPR is seen as leaning slightly left) or profiteering (the USPS has a large pension fund, perhaps an appealing target for a corporate raid).

bhupy 6y ago

Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1]. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2]. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3]. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4]. I'm also yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the USPS enjoys a monopoly in first class parcel mail. That is to say, sure let's keep USPS state owned / public, but why can't FedEx/UPS/Amazon/DHL compete with the USPS? [1] https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/ https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/ [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=uk https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=... [3] https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag [4] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-srch https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-sr...

mktk1001 6y ago
There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  You're being downvoted because most people believe it when FedEx or Amazon or UPS say they serve 100% of Americans. There's no way they would do so if they had to have the same footprint as the USPS. Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports? Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢? Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands? There are post offices so far out in the middle of nowhere that while they have a concrete pad for handicapped parking because it's required by the ADA, no customers ever arrive by car, so there's also hitching posts for people's horses, which is the primary mode of transportation. I don't see Amazon doing that. It'll just say, "Wait 20 years for your mail while we work the bugs out of our super-cool drone delivery service!"

8bitsrule 6y ago

James Buchanan's ideas and Koch money are the subject of Nancy MacLean's 2017 book "Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-chains https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-ch...

nickff 6y ago
"Democracy in Chains" is irredeemably flawed, and has been completely discredited by a series of prominent reviewers.[1][2] There are many more reviews which reveal the scope of fabrication in this book, but it suffices to say that the work should be considered 'fiction', perhaps in the 'fantasy' category. [1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502 [2] https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem.. https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem.... [3] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac.. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac....

load 6y ago

It seems like Koch wants to keep pushing consensus to privatize the postal service by weakening funding for it, which is, either intentionally or unintentionally, economically harming it. I'm on the fence over whether 'kill' is the right word for this though.

spiritplumber 6y ago

Postal banking works really well in the countris in which it exists. The best way to help USPS is to use them as your default shipping method: do so.

missedthecue 6y ago
why would I want to help the USPS at a cost to me?
- inetknght 6y ago
  because you're only considering short term monetary cost at the cost of long term benefit
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    how so
    - inetknght 6y ago
      Mail going through the USPS has a right to privacy. Mail through commercial carriers does not. Unfortunately that privacy often doesn't get factored into the cost.

jorblumesea 6y ago

It often feels like the social contract in American society is breaking down. Many of the rich elite in the US care nothing for the common person, and only adhere to their bubble of the wealthy and powerful. Crushing institutions that help people, or blocking the creation of new ones that might, are done so for ideological reasons even if practically speaking they might work or help people out. At some point the wealthy and political in the US might have somewhat acted in the interest of the American people. But now it feels like almost every move is to the detriment of the average person. If things continue like this, America is in real trouble.

deleted 6y ago

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gdubs 6y ago

One of the most memorable passages from Cliff Stoll’s “Silicon Snake Oil” was about the reliability of snail mail. How you could scribble a person’s name on a postcard, mess up a lot of details, and it still manages to get to them.

xyst 6y ago

Haven't finished reading it, but I was not surprised that the Koch family is behind this special interest group. The family has been fucking the US and world long before Trump was elected. They have a history of funding fake climate change science in order to push favorable legislation for the O&G industry. Anything that might benefit society (healthcare, social support, ...), they have fought against or funded a PAC to do their dirty work.

sizzle 6y ago

Why can't the US Gov bail out the USPS like big banks?

hellotomyrars 6y ago
Because corporate welfare is good because it'll create jobs and put money in the working man's pocket and anything with social value is a waste/drain on our strained resources and we'll have to raise taxes and you can't do that! /s

rufus_3 6y ago

I hope the billionaire is successful. For some reason every other courier that delivers to my address manages to bring my deliveries right to my doorstep - UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon, GrubHub, local pizza restaurants, etc. all manage to enter my apartment complex, locate my unit, and leave my items right at my door. The only exception is USPS, which consistently leaves a slip in my mailbox pretending that they "had no access" to my apartment, even though the gates are wide open during the daytime when they arrive. Instead of delivering my items, every time I have to drive several miles to the Post Office the next day, mask up for Covid, and wait in the long line to retrieve my packages. Every aspect of my experience with USPS is dissatisfying - they can't be defunded soon enough.

deleted 6y ago

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seizethecheese 6y ago

We are building a just-in-time distribution network on top of USPS (Bottomless - YC W19) We're able to deal with their slowness because we predict demand in advance using data from a smart scale. It's quite astonishing how unreliable USPS is. We frequently see packages get routed to a totally incorrect part of the country, derailing shipments for several days. Also, it seems like even USPS doesn't know when their packages will arrive. The estimates they give are worse at predicting arrival time than just inputing distance into a simple regression!

nxc18 6y ago
Do you have any comparisons to other services? I’ve most often seen UPS route things bizarrely and I’ve had several packages delivered a day or two late.
- seizethecheese 6y ago
  We are USPS only at the moment.

cwhiz 6y ago

I can imagine a future without the USPS. A future where I don’t have a weekly chore of sorting through the spam to decide which to throw away and which to recycle. And a future where I don’t have giant boxes “delivered” into my tiny mailbox that could fit maybe a stack of 25 envelopes. And a future where 20% of packages don’t arrive. I can see why people want to avoid this.

jedberg 6y ago

The USPS missed a golden opportunity in the 90s. Almost no one had an email address in the early 90s. The USPS was so afraid of email they refused to embrace it. They could have been the email address of record for everyone in the US if they just set up a forwarding address for anyone who wanted it. Heck, they could even do it now. Imagine having a free foo@me.us email address that someone could only send to if they paid for it, like the way mail works now. That is the business they should get in to, along with killing all the check cashing places by being a bank for unbanked like they used to be.

benhurmarcel 6y ago
In France the post office (La Poste) did this from 2000. It did have success, in the following years a lot of people used it as their main email service. They even were mandated by the government to automatically provide an account for all school students. But they couldn't keep up with more modern services. Their webmail and storage was laughable compared to Gmail and others, and people moved on. They still operate, but it's basically just for older people who never changed now. Post office companies can't compete with tech giants on email services.

crb002 6y ago

The US Postal Service should be funded like NASA. It can contract out to companies like Amazon - just like NASA contracts to SpaceX.

zeckalpha 6y ago

Can’t they target Amtrak instead?

DevKoala 6y ago

https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ From those figures it looks like > 90% of the USPS throughput benefits the marketing operations of private companies and scammers.

bawana 6y ago

Perhaps we should allow a private arm of the postal service to enter another area important for communication: internet service. As it is now, internet service is restricted to one or two providers in most regions. Prices are ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. And broadband in the US is denied to many low profit areas. Yet we are in a time of COVID sanctions, schooling and working remotely that all rely on the net. Broadband supply needs more competition. The postal service is already delivering snail mail. How is it they were never tapped to run the internet in the US but instead we allow oligarchs to bleed us like Baron Harkonnen in Dune?

RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
I would be thrilled to pay USPS as an email provider or ISP, even paying a premium to do so, if they offered comparable service in my area.

anonu 6y ago

Getting rid of the USPS has tremendous national security implications. It's a "network" that doesn't rely on the internet. Imagine we had to deliver a vaccine to everyone within a week. The USPS knows everyone's address and where people live. They would be the go to institution to do this.