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I mean, they have their own websites and the postal service. But the real answer is, too large of a population of the USA believes the free market is more effi

I mean, they have their own websites and the postal service. But the real answer is, too large of a population of the USA believes the free market is more efficient than government. I don’t know if that is right or wrong, but it definitely leads to an outsized reliance of the government on private companies.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> too large of a population of the USA believes the free market is more efficient than government. People believe this because it is actually true. But its mechanism of operation is competition. It doesn't apply to monopolies or highly consolidated markets, which can be as inefficient as any government. This has obvious implications for the subject at hand.
- edoceo 6y ago
  More "efficient" at what? Business is supposed to be efficient at making money and does so by excluding non-customers. Government is supposed to be "efficient" at serving all the people -is very hard economically. Post to rural MO, MT or AK wouldn't make it w/o guaranteed service by USPS. Among other services B couldn't do because the "margins arent there"
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Business is supposed to be efficient at making money and does so by... maximizing value and minimizing costs so that customers choose their offering over a competitor's. Which makes them more money. > Government is supposed to be "efficient" at serving all the people -is very hard economically. This is almost never even useful. Having mail service to rural areas isn't uneconomical because nobody would offer the service for the right price, it's because nobody would pay the price it actually costs. But if it costs the government $100 to deliver a package, and the recipient would rather have the $100 than have the package delivered to their home (as compared to e.g. a post office box in the nearest town), why are we even doing that? Just let them keep the $100 in tax money they would have paid to fund the delivery but wouldn't have paid given the choice not to.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      I like the way this comment put it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697249 IMO when you decide to start disconnecting parts of your country because they are inconvenient, you're one step from disconnecting the disagreeable, undesirable, or just different. The disconnected form their own beliefs and eventually take actions that are destructive to the whole because they haven't been connected to the whole.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > IMO when you decide to start disconnecting parts of your country because they are inconvenient, you're one step from disconnecting the disagreeable, undesirable, or just different. The disconnected form their own beliefs and eventually take actions that are destructive to the whole because they haven't been connected to the whole. I had to read this twice to realize that you were disagreeing with me, because of how well what you said maps to the ongoing forced segregation of the political parties onto separate social media sites. Where I would disagree with you with respect to the Post Office is the assumption that not having universal direct home delivery is actually disconnecting people. Even historically, having mail delivered to your nearest town rather than directly to your house adds a few days of latency to a form of communication that already has about a week of latency in it. You're still participating in the same network, with the same people. You receive the same information. Which is the thing that doesn't happen if we purposely segregate people with differing political views from communicating with one another.
    - ikt 6y ago
      > Having mail service to rural areas isn't uneconomical because nobody would offer the service for the right price, it's because nobody would pay the price it actually costs Or perhaps they would pay the cost but it's uneconomical to do so and having an uneconomical situation results in worse outcomes for a significant amount of the population? I can't believe you're saying this when a enormous group of Americans have shown at the last election that they are clearly uneducated in the richest country in the world yet instead of attempting to fix that issue capitalism is exploiting them for profit. > This is almost never even useful. There are a lot of issues America could fix if you had more faith in your government.
  - zo1 6y ago
    Free market solves that problem with higher prices to deliver to further/more rural places. We just don't like that because we're spoiled with the government hiding that additional cost at the expense of those who should ideally get it cheaper.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> too large of a population of the USA believes the free market is more efficient than government. People believe this because it is actually true. But its mechanism of operation is competition. It doesn't apply to monopolies or highly consolidated markets, which can be as inefficient as any government. This has obvious implications for the subject at hand.

edoceo 6y ago
More "efficient" at what? Business is supposed to be efficient at making money and does so by excluding non-customers. Government is supposed to be "efficient" at serving all the people -is very hard economically. Post to rural MO, MT or AK wouldn't make it w/o guaranteed service by USPS. Among other services B couldn't do because the "margins arent there"
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Business is supposed to be efficient at making money and does so by... maximizing value and minimizing costs so that customers choose their offering over a competitor's. Which makes them more money. > Government is supposed to be "efficient" at serving all the people -is very hard economically. This is almost never even useful. Having mail service to rural areas isn't uneconomical because nobody would offer the service for the right price, it's because nobody would pay the price it actually costs. But if it costs the government $100 to deliver a package, and the recipient would rather have the $100 than have the package delivered to their home (as compared to e.g. a post office box in the nearest town), why are we even doing that? Just let them keep the $100 in tax money they would have paid to fund the delivery but wouldn't have paid given the choice not to.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I like the way this comment put it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697249 IMO when you decide to start disconnecting parts of your country because they are inconvenient, you're one step from disconnecting the disagreeable, undesirable, or just different. The disconnected form their own beliefs and eventually take actions that are destructive to the whole because they haven't been connected to the whole.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > IMO when you decide to start disconnecting parts of your country because they are inconvenient, you're one step from disconnecting the disagreeable, undesirable, or just different. The disconnected form their own beliefs and eventually take actions that are destructive to the whole because they haven't been connected to the whole. I had to read this twice to realize that you were disagreeing with me, because of how well what you said maps to the ongoing forced segregation of the political parties onto separate social media sites. Where I would disagree with you with respect to the Post Office is the assumption that not having universal direct home delivery is actually disconnecting people. Even historically, having mail delivered to your nearest town rather than directly to your house adds a few days of latency to a form of communication that already has about a week of latency in it. You're still participating in the same network, with the same people. You receive the same information. Which is the thing that doesn't happen if we purposely segregate people with differing political views from communicating with one another.
  - ikt 6y ago
    > Having mail service to rural areas isn't uneconomical because nobody would offer the service for the right price, it's because nobody would pay the price it actually costs Or perhaps they would pay the cost but it's uneconomical to do so and having an uneconomical situation results in worse outcomes for a significant amount of the population? I can't believe you're saying this when a enormous group of Americans have shown at the last election that they are clearly uneducated in the richest country in the world yet instead of attempting to fix that issue capitalism is exploiting them for profit. > This is almost never even useful. There are a lot of issues America could fix if you had more faith in your government.
- zo1 6y ago
  Free market solves that problem with higher prices to deliver to further/more rural places. We just don't like that because we're spoiled with the government hiding that additional cost at the expense of those who should ideally get it cheaper.