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Just to clarify. There is at least one chosen and contractually bound Mail Service provider in Denmark. Their terms are set in public tenders. The old state own
by arbirk 10mo ago
Just to clarify. There is at least one chosen and contractually bound Mail Service provider in Denmark. Their terms are set in public tenders. The old state owned company - Post Nord - basically decide not to compete for the contract. A newer company - DAO - won the tender. What this means in legal terms:
Under law:
DAO must comply with its postal permit obligations (nationwide service where offered, pricing transparency, quality monitoring).
But there is no absolute legal universal delivery duty for all mail anymore.
Under government contract:
DAO has a specific binding duty to deliver blind mail as defined in the tender it won - this is a contractual obligation, not a general statutory duty for all mail.
Be mindful that in principle the service provider could chose to not cover certain parts of the country. That has to be clearly stated in their terms of service.
The Danish government are expected by the public to continue to subsidize delivery to people with special needs, in the contract identified as "blind mail"
- dmix 10mo agoAnd the reason the existing public corporation shut down service in Denmark > citing a 90% decline in letter mail since 2000
- kimos 10mo agoCanada Post is in financial crisis for similar reasons.
- expedition32 10mo agoIn the Netherlands the post office is contractually obliged to deliver mail but they are LOSING money on it. Even the government themselves went full digital... Personally I think that if people think post services are a national priority it should be subsidised with tax money. Cannot expect a private company to burn money.
- dmix 10mo agoCanada Post is losing money on parcel delivery, not just regular mail. They are pretty awful as a service (for anything serious at least) and are constantly going on strike, so everyone is flocking to private competition. I've had 3 different packages end up in a purgatory in 2 different strikes and now I use Fedex instead. Which is funny because parcel delivery has only grown over the last decade while Canada Post loses more and more money, while their union workers are demanding pay raises and job security.
- ronsor 10mo agoWhen strikes happen, do packages really just vanish into the void? Why doesn't the government just make the strikes illegal?
- kimos 9mo agoThey just get delayed. Pickup points stop accepting packages. Mail boxes fill up. But they catch up when Canada Post goes back to work. Goods don’t disappear but delay with no predictable end date. Canada Post is a crown corp so they operate independently but have a charter they owe to the federal govt. The feds can and have legislated back to work, but it is very unpopular when they do, and tends to just kick problems down the road. They need to majorly rethink and restructure. I know we can continue to just pay, it’s an institution and we are a rich country who can afford institutions. But it will lose money forever until we recon with how times have changed.
- Aaargh20318 9mo ago> Even the government themselves went full digital... Not really. There is the ‘mijn berichten’ (my messages) app. You can indicate which government services should send messages through the app instead of by physical mail. I have checked everything, including the tax service. So now I get anything related to taxes through the messages app. And then they send a physical letter anyway which arrives 2 days after the digital one. Every. Single. Time. As far as I can tell it’s only the tax service that does this. They claim the app is meant to save on paper waste, but if they keep sending things by mail anyway then what is the point.
- wink 10mo agoHa, Germany is safe. Not because the postal service is/is not/has to be profitable but because our government fucks up everything digital.
- wolvesechoes 10mo agoPostal service is a public service, thus there shouldn't be any contracts, TOS or competition. Sad to see civilizational damages caused by neoliberalism, even in such countries as Denmark.
- port11 10mo agoI generally agree (my post history should back my anti-neoliberalism), but I suppose eventually the postal service becomes a relic that can't operate on the same terms. At what loss should we accept a letter to be delivered? Or should they charge the real cost of delivering it? EU governments are cutting costs everywhere, this is the end result of recession-era policies. Of course it could also be due to mismanagement. If Amazon is allowed to subcontract its own delivery people, and somehow that's profitable, public post companies might find ways to stay relevant.
- wolvesechoes 10mo agoI am for postal service being reformed and handle digital communication as well. But let's not forget that network and electricity are not given once and for all. We may end up experiencing quite long periods without them. Country that would get rid of related infra and know-how would be helpless.
- port11 9mo agoInternet, electricity, all other utilities are usually profitable. In fact, these are the ones that get privatised largely because they're profitable.