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> USPS delivers to anyone in the extended U.S. with sane prices. They are able to do this by overcharging for local mail and absurdly undercharging for rural m
by cwhiz 6y ago
> USPS delivers to anyone in the extended U.S. with sane prices.
They are able to do this by overcharging for local mail and absurdly undercharging for rural mail. Just another in the never ending list of ways that dense areas subsidize less dense areas.
But the kicker is the less dense areas are the ones who would vote to privatize the USPS. So I say give them what they want.
- soulofmischief 6y agoThat's how comprehensive pricing works, yes. Are you similarly angry that healthcare plans operate this way?
- cwhiz 6y agoI'm not angry about either. I am in favor of giving people what they want. Look at who supports the postal service and who doesn't. There will be no downsides for me if the postal service goes away. The people who want it to go away must have considered the downsides and still don't care. Why would I want to get in the way?
- eru 6y agoYou should be! There's a difference between insurance and cross subsidies. Insurance is basically a bet. If I have deep enough pockets and some actuary tables, I can write you a single insurance policy. And I can expect to make money of that single policy on average. (But in the specifics, I might have to pay out.) No need for a group that cross subsidizes each other.
- tehwebguy 6y agoThe duopoly of private shippers charge more than 30x for letter delivery within the US (and still substantially more than USPS for most package services) and those prices are surely as low as they are because USPS drives them down.
- jccooper 6y agoUSPS has a legal monopoly on letter service, save for "extremely urgent material". All private document delivery must therefore be Express-class. It's not reasonable to compare FexEx Express to USPS First Class. USPS Express and FedEx Overnight for documents are essentially the same price, even though FedEx has a higher standard of service. (Which is not surprising, because FedEx runs the backbone of USPS Express.) FedEx and UPS parcel prices generally beat USPS above a certain fairly small weight, even at retail prices. I'm happy to have USPS around, and I do a lot of business with them as they're the better option in certain circumstances, but let's not pretend their pricing is particularly magical.