3 ms·
While USPS technically has a monopoly on your mailbox, you can send someone a letter via UPS or FedEx--for significantly more money.
by bradstewart 5y ago
While USPS technically has a monopoly on your mailbox, you can send someone a letter via UPS or FedEx--for significantly more money.
- kibwen 5y agoAnd if you send something to a remote area, UPS and FedEx will themselves delegate to USPS precisely because it's not profitable to develop the infrastructure to service remote populations.
- BehindBlueEyes 5y agoIt's not profitable to develop the infrastructure, but considering the price of delivering something where I live, I'm sure Fedex/UPS make a nice margin by delegating the last 400km drive to an unprofitable postal service.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> you can send someone a letter via UPS or FedEx--for significantly more money. Right, the reason it costs significantly more money to use UPS or FedEx is that it's illegal for them to charge less. Paying more puts your letter into a different legal category that is not reserved to the USPS. Nobody cares about the mailbox. The USPS holds a monopoly on the delivery of non-urgent mail, which is defined as mail that costs below a certain price point to send.
- bradstewart 5y agoTIL it's illegal for UPS and FedEx to charge less. That was certainly a part of this equation I was missing, thank you!
- 8note 5y agoyou can also send an email nowadays, or a <whatever chat>