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I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we nee

I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.

Damogran6 1y ago
What's the profit in that? /s
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  You say /s, but a government issued and USPS operated e-mail service may be very profitable. In the Netherlands we have a government message system where the tax office, local counties, water companies, etc can send you 'official' messages. Thing is though, each message costs €0.25 to send. I think this is ridiculously expensive for a glorified email, but I suppose they have a lot of certifications and audits and the like. I hope, anyway. Anyway, email itself is broken, but this system works because if it costs money to send a message, it discourages any spambot and/or misuse.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    €0.25 is much less than the cost of printing and posting a letter, and presumably this service comes with proof of delivery. (There's a similar system in Denmark.)
egypturnash 1y ago
Is a payment processor operated by the Federal Reserve good enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-executive-order-to.html https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut... I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.
- Arubis 1y ago
  Ugh, they killed FedNow too? That hadn’t hit my radar. Why a waste.
  - Ericson2314 1y ago
    I don't think so?
    - ambicapter 1y ago
      Here's the EO, I don't see where it kills FedNow, it seems like it just mandates electronic payments and disallows paper checks: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/modernizing-payments-to-and-from-americas-bank-account/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/mode...
      - lesuorac 1y ago
        Heh, while I like the idea of using immediate electronic dispursement over the mail. I do find the ending of the EO pretty amusing. You're telling the agencies exactly what to do, how is that not impairing their authority? > Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: > (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
        Arubis 1y ago
        You can be almost certain these EOs are composed in tandem with LLMs.
        tcmart14 1y ago
        And its okay because the federal employees who need to know what these say will just ask their LLM what it says! /s
        somenameforme 1y ago
ghostDancer 1y ago
[flagged]
throw10920 1y ago
Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence? For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS. Doubly so given the interactions that I've had with digital services provided by my country's government and the bad (and in several cases extremely bad) experiences that I've had with them. To be clear - I don't object to e.g. an address from the USPS complementing my existing email - I just don't want to be forced to use it for anything due to it being given some special properties that normal email providers aren't.
- belval 1y ago
  > Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence? No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff. Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.
  - throw10920 1y ago
    I completely agree with a lot of what you said! I'm not against technology in general or think that things like email aren't useful. I think my argument is harder to make for payment processors, but in the case of email, it is preferable to not need an email address to create an account (even if it's convenient to have the option), and have other identifiers that can be used, like OAuth using an existing account or phone number, for instance. Or, like I said, even better if you don't even need to create an account to participate in a one-time transaction (instead of a service relationship) with an entity.
mapt 1y ago
The USPS and state DMVs should also collaborate on the novel role of identity management. Right now if you lose your phone, half of your life disappears because Google won't even log you into the email address that contains every "lost my password" redirect without 2FA on a new device. This is a bad scene. We need boring old meatspace ways to establish, re-establish, and federate our identity as a real person. Something that demands that I wait in line, that I show them a utility bill or drivers' license, that I confirm with a retina scan or fingerprint printed out on a sheet of paper that nobody else has access to. Something that is only trackable in one direction, from which you can generate a new identity if one is compromised. This is so close to the functional role of the "Credit card number" that you may as well tack bank transfer verification on there. The One Digital Identity Service To Rule Them All is always vulnerable to mass hacking. We need to connect it with something slower, something more private, and the interface to that slow identity needs to be something that already has a branch open in the middle of nowhere.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
dmix 1y ago
How does that fix censorship concerns? The main issue is that political pressure campaigns has a lever over the entire payment processing sector because of cartel like behaviour. A public service could provide an alternative for sure but it'd have to be done very carefully and independent.
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  Actual government stuff is way more legally constrained than private sector stuff. It would be trivially to sue for freedom of speech if I was gov. Public-private partnerships like chartered banks, and outright cartels like Visa MasterCard, are much more fruitful mechanisms for this sort of civil liberties abuse.
guywithahat 1y ago
I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax document, and it would be down all the time. Think the line at the post office but for server up-times. Similarly if the mint maintained a payment processor then they'd just create a legal monopoly (like the USPS did) and ban new processors. Not only would they be worse than VISA and MasterCard, but they'd make paypal and venmo illegal. Don't forget the USPS bans competitors from being cheaper than itself, and this is exactly what would happen if the Mint had its own payment processor.
- monkeyelite 1y ago
  > US-treasury direct Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue
  - coredog64 1y ago
    It's better now, but during the era of the on-screen keyboard it was atrocious.
    - guywithahat 1y ago
      I thought they still had the on-screen keyboard? They had it as of 6 months ago at least. But still, atrocious site. I can't use the back button or it logs you out; logging in is like a 5 step chore, it's unintuitive and looks like it's from 2005. I can only assume it's unsafe and doing simple things like checking your balance take 20 minutes. There will never be an app and I'm sure they will continue to do no innovation on the customer service side.
      - monkeyelite 1y ago
        > looks like it's from 2005 Fantastic. Really fast pages, simple forms, no Js. trendy is not what I want from my government service site. > There will never be an app Good. I want more websites and less apps on my phone. That also helps me trust the security more.
kansface 1y ago
What would the post office do with spam? Their existing business model is chiefly predicated on delivering junk mail. I’m not sure how the federal government would deal with fraud on the payment side, either. The US does not have a strong system of identity.
- wombatpm 1y ago
  Junk mail is advertising mail that someone paid to send to you. You what it is not? Illegal. Scams, fraud, and other illegal things get shut down because of postal inspectors. And there is no anonymity. The USPS knows both ends of the transaction.
toast0 1y ago
> the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. Assuming this is a good idea, what is my email address going to look like? Am I going to have to be xx_toast_xx@postalcustomer like at yahoo? or will it be my address ... if so, what about the other three adults who get mail at my address; do I have to change my email address when I move? Will it be my real name, but if so, what about the other hundred people with the same name as me? (Which isn't that bad, I know lots of people with a way larger highlander list) Will it just be my social security number and we can pretend duplicates don't exist? What qualifies someone to be an everyone for this purpose?
agent327 1y ago
Just thinking out loud here, but if the government operated a bank they could apply some common sense to the whole system: * Allow any legal transaction (so if another payment processor refuses you, you have a backup) * Allow an account for any legal entity (so no more debanking) * By setting rates for savings and mortgages, it would provide a soft range for other banks to move within * The state would only have to guarantee its own bank. If other banks crash and burn it won't take down civilisation
anabab 1y ago
Post office offering emails is an interesting idea if you extend it further in the physical world. As in, using this identifier to deliver correspondence/parcels as well. pros: - privacy. Senders have zero idea where you actually are. mapping to physical addresses is performed by the post. - no need to update addresses in a million accounts when you move, your email points to the new physical address automatically (no idea how that works in other countries, but here you can set automatic forwarding for at most 1.5 years after you move). cons: - goods being sent to gmail addresses

Damogran6 1y ago

What's the profit in that? /s

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
You say /s, but a government issued and USPS operated e-mail service may be very profitable. In the Netherlands we have a government message system where the tax office, local counties, water companies, etc can send you 'official' messages. Thing is though, each message costs €0.25 to send. I think this is ridiculously expensive for a glorified email, but I suppose they have a lot of certifications and audits and the like. I hope, anyway. Anyway, email itself is broken, but this system works because if it costs money to send a message, it discourages any spambot and/or misuse.
- Symbiote 1y ago
  €0.25 is much less than the cost of printing and posting a letter, and presumably this service comes with proof of delivery. (There's a similar system in Denmark.)

egypturnash 1y ago

Is a payment processor operated by the Federal Reserve good enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-executive-order-to.html https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut... I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.

Arubis 1y ago
Ugh, they killed FedNow too? That hadn’t hit my radar. Why a waste.
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  I don't think so?
  - ambicapter 1y ago
    Here's the EO, I don't see where it kills FedNow, it seems like it just mandates electronic payments and disallows paper checks: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/modernizing-payments-to-and-from-americas-bank-account/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/mode...
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      Heh, while I like the idea of using immediate electronic dispursement over the mail. I do find the ending of the EO pretty amusing. You're telling the agencies exactly what to do, how is that not impairing their authority? > Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: > (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
      - Arubis 1y ago
        You can be almost certain these EOs are composed in tandem with LLMs.
        tcmart14 1y ago
        And its okay because the federal employees who need to know what these say will just ask their LLM what it says! /s
      - somenameforme 1y ago

ghostDancer 1y ago

[flagged]

throw10920 1y ago

Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence? For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS. Doubly so given the interactions that I've had with digital services provided by my country's government and the bad (and in several cases extremely bad) experiences that I've had with them. To be clear - I don't object to e.g. an address from the USPS complementing my existing email - I just don't want to be forced to use it for anything due to it being given some special properties that normal email providers aren't.

belval 1y ago
> Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence? No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff. Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.
- throw10920 1y ago
  I completely agree with a lot of what you said! I'm not against technology in general or think that things like email aren't useful. I think my argument is harder to make for payment processors, but in the case of email, it is preferable to not need an email address to create an account (even if it's convenient to have the option), and have other identifiers that can be used, like OAuth using an existing account or phone number, for instance. Or, like I said, even better if you don't even need to create an account to participate in a one-time transaction (instead of a service relationship) with an entity.

mapt 1y ago

The USPS and state DMVs should also collaborate on the novel role of identity management. Right now if you lose your phone, half of your life disappears because Google won't even log you into the email address that contains every "lost my password" redirect without 2FA on a new device. This is a bad scene. We need boring old meatspace ways to establish, re-establish, and federate our identity as a real person. Something that demands that I wait in line, that I show them a utility bill or drivers' license, that I confirm with a retina scan or fingerprint printed out on a sheet of paper that nobody else has access to. Something that is only trackable in one direction, from which you can generate a new identity if one is compromised. This is so close to the functional role of the "Credit card number" that you may as well tack bank transfer verification on there. The One Digital Identity Service To Rule Them All is always vulnerable to mass hacking. We need to connect it with something slower, something more private, and the interface to that slow identity needs to be something that already has a branch open in the middle of nowhere.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

dmix 1y ago

How does that fix censorship concerns? The main issue is that political pressure campaigns has a lever over the entire payment processing sector because of cartel like behaviour. A public service could provide an alternative for sure but it'd have to be done very carefully and independent.

Ericson2314 1y ago
Actual government stuff is way more legally constrained than private sector stuff. It would be trivially to sue for freedom of speech if I was gov. Public-private partnerships like chartered banks, and outright cartels like Visa MasterCard, are much more fruitful mechanisms for this sort of civil liberties abuse.

guywithahat 1y ago

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax document, and it would be down all the time. Think the line at the post office but for server up-times. Similarly if the mint maintained a payment processor then they'd just create a legal monopoly (like the USPS did) and ban new processors. Not only would they be worse than VISA and MasterCard, but they'd make paypal and venmo illegal. Don't forget the USPS bans competitors from being cheaper than itself, and this is exactly what would happen if the Mint had its own payment processor.

monkeyelite 1y ago
> US-treasury direct Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue
- coredog64 1y ago
  It's better now, but during the era of the on-screen keyboard it was atrocious.
  - guywithahat 1y ago
    I thought they still had the on-screen keyboard? They had it as of 6 months ago at least. But still, atrocious site. I can't use the back button or it logs you out; logging in is like a 5 step chore, it's unintuitive and looks like it's from 2005. I can only assume it's unsafe and doing simple things like checking your balance take 20 minutes. There will never be an app and I'm sure they will continue to do no innovation on the customer service side.
    - monkeyelite 1y ago
      > looks like it's from 2005 Fantastic. Really fast pages, simple forms, no Js. trendy is not what I want from my government service site. > There will never be an app Good. I want more websites and less apps on my phone. That also helps me trust the security more.

kansface 1y ago

What would the post office do with spam? Their existing business model is chiefly predicated on delivering junk mail. I’m not sure how the federal government would deal with fraud on the payment side, either. The US does not have a strong system of identity.

wombatpm 1y ago
Junk mail is advertising mail that someone paid to send to you. You what it is not? Illegal. Scams, fraud, and other illegal things get shut down because of postal inspectors. And there is no anonymity. The USPS knows both ends of the transaction.

toast0 1y ago

> the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. Assuming this is a good idea, what is my email address going to look like? Am I going to have to be xx_toast_xx@postalcustomer like at yahoo? or will it be my address ... if so, what about the other three adults who get mail at my address; do I have to change my email address when I move? Will it be my real name, but if so, what about the other hundred people with the same name as me? (Which isn't that bad, I know lots of people with a way larger highlander list) Will it just be my social security number and we can pretend duplicates don't exist? What qualifies someone to be an everyone for this purpose?

agent327 1y ago

Just thinking out loud here, but if the government operated a bank they could apply some common sense to the whole system: * Allow any legal transaction (so if another payment processor refuses you, you have a backup) * Allow an account for any legal entity (so no more debanking) * By setting rates for savings and mortgages, it would provide a soft range for other banks to move within * The state would only have to guarantee its own bank. If other banks crash and burn it won't take down civilisation

anabab 1y ago

Post office offering emails is an interesting idea if you extend it further in the physical world. As in, using this identifier to deliver correspondence/parcels as well. pros: - privacy. Senders have zero idea where you actually are. mapping to physical addresses is performed by the post. - no need to update addresses in a million accounts when you move, your email points to the new physical address automatically (no idea how that works in other countries, but here you can set automatic forwarding for at most 1.5 years after you move). cons: - goods being sent to gmail addresses