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Adapting the Post Office To the Digital Age
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui write in the Washington Post that with projected deficits through 2020 of $238 billion, the debate over potential changes at the US Postal Service is like a fight over the dessert bar on the Titanic: email has already supplanted letters, more people will send money via PayPal rather than mail checks, people will download their movies and books, check their bills online, and receive information about their investments electronically. Delivery volume for first-class mail fell 22 percent from 1998 through 2007, tumbled an additional 13 percent last year and was down 3 percent in the first half of this year despite heavy mailings from the Census Bureau. USPS's future lies in things that need to be delivered physically: shoes, computers and other objects, and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx. 'USPS needs to start with the future and work backward to the present,' write Carroll and Mui. 'It needs to forecast volumes for all types of its business five, 10 and 15 years out and design a business model that will thrive under those scenarios. Only then can it figure out what radical changes need to be made now.'"
The first thing that needs to be done is to remove the artificial monopoly congress created for the USPS making it so they are the only ones that can deliver first-class mail, once this happens more people will use mail (USPS or otherwise) because the inefficiency will be gone because it will either be deliver or go broke.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The post office is again talking about canceling Saturday delivery. To me, that is one of the best things they have going for them. Sure, UPS and FedEx will delivery on Saturdays, but for an additional cost. USPS delivers Saturday for the same cost as any other day of the week. Take no-extra-charge Saturday delivery and better rates for many pertinent deliveries than UPS or FedEx and frankly I'm not sure why more people don't ship through them.
But if they cancel Saturdays then they aren't as advantageous.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
realize this, but there's still a whole lot of people who live out in the country and small rural towns where the population density isn't high enough for UPS, FedEx and broadband to be profitable enough to serve these citizens.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
the artificial monopoly congress created for the USPS making it so they are the only ones that can deliver first-class mail
The post office doesn't actually have such a monopoly. The post office is the only company that can deliver to your mailbox, but you are free to put up a mailbox outside your house for UPS, FedEx, or any other service you want. Other companies can deliver as much mail as they want, they just can't use the USPS mail boxes. Other companies are also free to deliver any amount of mail or packages to your door in any way they want, any time they want.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Okay, here is where USPS falls short compared to FedEx and UPS:
* ridiculous restrictions on what can be shipped
* Severely under-staffed at practically every location
* Inflexible pickup policies
* Bankers' hours
* Poor package tracking (often won't indicate an item has shipped until days after it arrived at destination)
* No guarantees. "Priority" shipping "may be 2-3 days" but then again it might take a week
If I call FedEx I can get a small shipment picked up usually within an hour, often as late as 6:30 or 7. A large shipment is a little different but even if I need to ship half a ton or a ton worth of goods, I can get a pickup the same day.
UPS is a little less flexible.
I used to have a UPS vs. FedEx comparison on my web site. It went something like this:
FedEx
* if the driver bothers to find you, the package will be delivered in one piece
* If they bother to find you, the package will arrive on time
* Your package will be handled carefully
* You deliveryperson is probably an ex con
* Your FedEx air driver can't pick up ground packages
UPS
* The driver will always find you, but the package might be beat up
* Your package might sit at the local UPS hub or UPS center a day or two before going out for delivery
* Your package will have fallen off a conveyor belt 30' onto the concrete floor because UPS insists on running 60,000-120,000 packages over four hours through a conveyor system designed to handle maybe 30,000 packages over four hours
* your deliveryperson is probably an ex con
* Your UPS ground or UPS air driver can pick up either air or ground packages
UPS used to be excellent - going public has really hurt them a lot. It seemed middle management cared a lot more when they were owner-operated so their net wealth had a lot more to do with how they performed than what their perceived market value is. Now that market cap drives managements' personal profits, they have little regard for customer service.
But honestly, I don't expect the USPS can ever do any better than either of them. USPS already does a craptacular job that makes either UPS or FedEx look good.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The thing that I really hate about traditional mail is that it goes to my house, not to me. When I move house, I have to (pay to) set up a redirection and then stuff where people got the address slightly wrong needs forwarding manually. Big companies can set up a P/O Box that forwards to their physical location. Why not to this for everyone? In the UK, the post code and house name or number are enough to uniquely identify every house in the country. Why not make the system identify people by a short code (or something like a domain name) instead? That way, when I move house, I don't need to tell people my new address unless they are actually visiting me - people who are just writing to me can keep using the old address.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That at least will hopefully improve the efficiency though it won't fix the underlying problem which is that the snail mail is dying. Btw, a question. did anybody else notice the service quality dropping recently. I've had more of my mail not delivered (when I know it was sent) and other people's mail mistakenly delivered to my mailbox in the last year than in my entire life. Could be just my mailman I guess.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I translate that into 'internet email tax' or 'online bill pay tax'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Some of us need an alternative to PayPal... Online only works for those who carry the mark of the beast (have a bank, or PayPal account, or a credit card)
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
That is what you are deciding to say the political left is saying.
Back in the real world we have the whole sorry saga of workers exploited as long as the government does not intervene or the workers get fed up and go , er, postal.
And we also have branches of government that are independent from each other (labour tribunals are a common feature in modern, democratic countries) so the apparent contradiction you are trying to point out, actually is not a given, unless you have a political system that is particularly incompetent, corrupt, or both.
I guess you could claim that decreased usage in a country of the size of the US makes it unprofitable, but in truth it just means that in the worst case they could revert to the system they had in 1980 or 1970 when they were doing fine with less users. So why is there a problem?
USPS will never recover and or be profitable, their labor and benefits costs are way too high.
Got Code?
That at least will hopefully improve the efficiency though it won't fix the underlying problem which is that the snail mail is dying.
You better hope that bulk mail doesn't die, or transmitting that electronically will increase the amount of spam people get.
Other countries have been trialing technology that allows incoming mail to be scanned and transmitted electronically to the recipient. This seems like a great area for USPS to move towards, and would help them taper off residential delivery as the number of people who still demand dead trees in their mailbox dwindles.
Company realizes it needs to think about the future and plan for it. News at 11.
Sell it to FedEx or UPS. Allow them to cut letter deliveries to MWF. Get rid of the Postal Inspectors. Get rid of the bloated, over paid bureaucracy.
USPS also needs to work on their shipping prices. My girlfriend shipped a small (~2 lb) package recently, and USPS grounds would have cost her $20. OnTrac was $10 for next day, and it arrived at 10:30 in the morning. Charging more money for things is not necessarily a good way to make more money off of them.
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
UPS/FedEx can open your mail pretty much on a whim. The USPS needs a warrant.
Part of the problem for me is junk mail. I don't look forward to getting the mail these days because a very small chunk of the pile makes me happy. Junk mail doesn't affect real mail's credibility, but it does degrade the "user-experience" of First Class mail. The USPS is about the least fun way to communicate these days. It's no fun to send anything more complicated than a simple pre-stamped envelope. On the receiving end, the USPS themselves gave away the charm that "getting the mail" held when they decided it was good business to deliver things that say "current resident" or (like the wad of newsprint coupons) don't even have my address on it at all. Eventually, we end up finding more fun ways to communicate personally and, when we do, we start doing all of our business communications that way too.
This year, Fedex was really two days and tracking was updated at least every 8 hours right down to it was out on the truck for local delivery.
I fully expect any "reform" of USPS will be nothing more than restrictions on the private sector who completes against it.
Build a Robot Kevin Costner?
The thing is that the USPS wouldn't been doing as bad if congress wasn't constantly meddling.
They set up "retirement health benefits pre-funding" at approx $5.5 billion a year. Now pre-funding retirement benefits is a good idea, but that's not what this money is used for. That $5.5 billion goes into the federal coffers. This is after the USPS was forced to overfund their previous pension by $75 billion.
USPS would have been profitable in 3 of the last 4 years without the pre-funding requirement.
I work as a "Postal liaison" for a commercial printer. Which pretty much means I have to watch every minute detail of the USPS in the news. I think they are headed for a hard fall, but not because their business model is broken, but because of the meddling of 536 "CEOs".
If the USPS raised rates on advertising and other junk mail, rather than using first class mail rates to subsidize the junk mailers, they would start doing better financially.
As far as the low-grade 'let's privatize everything' morons, well, we're on the edge of a second depression - and idiots like you are the reason we are here. The Post Office exists to serve a vital public function, or at least it did before the Republileeches perverted it into a semi-private corporation - presumably with the intent of destroying it, and replacing it with private couriers or some other sort of cutting-edge stupidity from the late 1600's. Hell, I'm surprised they aren't still trying to burn 'witches.'
The USPS should be re-nationalized, and fixed - not destroyed, just so a group of societal parasites can leech a profit out of everyone else.
They should provide a secure digital communication system, encryption and the rule of law stating the same as with snail mail. The government can't read it without warrant.
I know you're all thinking this is retarded and everything but just hear me out for a second.
Legal documents and countless other non physical items still are transferred through the post office. I should be able to send a message to the post office in a method that verifies my identity for the receiver. I shouldn't have to sign things by hand there should be a method to digitally sign everything with a specific time stamp using a time based encryption algo. GPG should be adopted and new features should be included to allow public keys/certificates private keys to be controlled by the sender and provided by the post office.
If I don't own a computer I should still be able to go into a post office with letter in hand. That letter should be scanned into the system with my identity verified at the post office either with biometrics or other means. The letter should be encrypted using my key system. The law should protect the sender from what technology can not...someone opening up the envelope to read what it says before sending it forward. How much mail would this reduce or remove? Once the receiving Post office gets the digital package if the receiver owns a computer it is available to them by the post office verifying by IP or pushing it out to the system for delivery. If the receiver does not own a computer it should be printed off or alternatively provided in a portable digital transfer by simply hooking up your USB key at a local Post Office.
Spam is mute when you know the senders identity 100%. Even if it wasn't you can follow systems out there now that will not accept a digital package until the receiver accepts it from the user (return to sender).
There is no reason for anyone to live with spam today and there is no reason to fear the government if laws protect the citizens from corruption of our Rights. The USPO has an opportunity here to make huge changes...in addition to funding the broadband in every home ideal. That would be looking forward.
The company that gets my shipping money just needs to do a few things:
USPS fails miserably on the first and third of these. If they want my shipping business, they'll have to do all three.
In the meantime, UPS seems to have the most accurate tracking, has given us the least trouble when it comes to errors they made (like delivering packages to the wrong address, or damaging well packed items in transit), and barring really extreme weather, they almost never fail to deliver on time or sooner.
There are some less-critical areas where USPS could improve as well.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Simply raise the rates to be more in-line with the costs of doing business. It's an expensive operation to run that we all benefit from so charge accordingly.
-DML
USPS's future lies in things that need to be delivered physically: shoes, computers and other objects, and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx.
I could not disagree more. USPS's future lies in mail, e-mail to be more specific, they just need to step up to the plate and do what needs to be done. It's astounding that the USPS doesn't see the opportunity that is right in front of their eyes.
Hope is the currency of fools
...and am a very heavy user, for an individual. I mail 6-8 letters/postcards/packages a day, none of which is ebay or anything like that. That's what you get from having friends all over the place, Postcrossing, etc.
I like my postman, and I like the fact that in Portland I am usually near a post office or postbox. I have many fond memories of going to the PO when I was a kid, I used to collect stamps, etc. However...
The real problem with USPS is the union. High, inflexible labor costs. No ability to terminate people without an Act of Congress, no ability to do layoffs, etc. By all accounts (some of them quite entertaining), the Post Office is an awful place to work: management that's rotted in place, hip-deep paperwork and bureaucracy, bitter people who do the barest minimum to avoid being fired, no incentives to do better, etc.
Advice: on VPS providers
A lot of people here are whining that the post office charges too much. So why don't you call UPS or Fed Ex and see if they'll ship a 1 pound package from Supai, Arizona 86435 to Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 for the same $4.95 that the USPS will charge for flat rate Priority Mail.
And don't even get me started on first class mail. Even if they were allowed to carry it, I'd be willing to bet money that UPS or Fed Ex would laugh in my face if I expected them to deliver a letter just from one side of town to the other for 44 cents.
For some mail and packages, yes, UPS and Fed Ex can do it cheaper. But for *many* places and types of mail, USPS is a freaking bargain (and that's why it doesn't make money).
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Alot of people like to conveniently forget that prior to the economic collapse of the world's economy the USPS was not only sulf-sufficient but kept prices crazy low without taking tax payer dollars. http://www.nalc.org/postal/perform/selfsufficient.html#selfsufficient http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/postalfacts.htm
As a former USPS Rural Carrier PFT (Part Time Flex), I can tell you two things that are indeed causing USPS to be highly inefficient. First is the huge number of middle managers that are there to create paperwork to justify their and their superior's jobs. Lets gut middle management that are the bane of reports that are forced on Post Masters and Customer Service Supervisors. Post Master should have complete control over their office, they are the front line managers that need to be empowered and not hobbled management wise. Second is the unions, Rural Carriers have their own, City Carriers have their own, Clerks have their own, so do Maintence, what's left of them that haven't been subcontracted out. I can't remember if the mail handlers have their own or not or apart of the clerks, wouldn't surprise me if they did. There needs to be one union and that's it, not separate unions each with their own contracts that say what can and can not be done.
No, I was not a member of National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, I refused to join when I realized that as a RCA (before I became career as a RC PTF), the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association didn't give a rat's ass about us Rural Carrier Associates (RCAs), we were just a poker chip in their weak ass negotiations with USPS, we got zero health care benefits nor did we get other major perks that the Rural Carriers got. I've never heard of a union not insuring their apprentices receive health care benefits, but that is how they treat their apprentices (RCAs). Even City Carrier union made sure their substitute carriers got insurance and full benefits.
USPS is a mess, it needs radical changes to make it into a effective and money making business. It's losing money because their cash cow, Business Bulk Mail, volume is in the toilet along with the first class mail. It will take congress to get them sorted out and we know how well they are doing with budgets...
I'm actually surprised that first class mail isn't $1 for a letter yet.
But I don't give a shit because it's only 40 cents and don't use it a lot. Why complain about stupid shit? USPS works fine.
Do you really want pig farms to move in next to you? How about a slaughterhouse?
Thank you for explaining why zoning laws exist. But I imagine that if we want to make a large-scale switch from farming far from cities to urban gardening in order to make the job of the USPS easier, this would have to go hand in hand with more vegetarianism.
They need to find a way to make money without sending me physical spam, aka "bulk mail" addressed to "occupant".
What annoys me the most about mail is the huge percentage that I walk straight to the recycling bin.
However, if they enforced a regulation requiring that all such mail must be printed on compostable paper, using organic ink I'd be quite a bit happier. Into the compost bin, along with the broccoli stalks and onion peels it would go. Then, a few months later that grocery ad for fresh veggies would be turned into... fresh veggies!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
seen something similar in norway as well. Here the post offices outside of cities are basically gone, replaced with some kind of partnership with a local store or gas station (tho funny enough, that have lead to better opening hours, as the post offices used to maintain normal office ours, not store hours).
So the hours are better for service, but you have to go somewhere to pick up your mail.
Well honestly, why should you expect to live way out in the countryside and expect to have mail delivered to your doorstep, any time, for hardly any money? That doesn't seem realistic or efficient long term. Either the post office needs to jack up stamp rates quite a lot to pay for this extra service, or people that have the privilege of living in isolated environments simply have to put up with getting mail when they go into town (or when neighbors go into town).
I used to live in the countryside as well; I greatly prefer it and would not mind having less regular or centralized mail service as a tradeoff.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
UPS/FedEx can open your mail pretty much on a whim. The USPS needs a warrant.
How would that help reduce USPS delivery costs though? Unless you are saying they should be rifling through email looking to take a cut of any cashiers checks or birthday money they find.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It needs to forecast volumes for all types of its business five, 10 and 15 years out and design a business model that will thrive under those scenarios.
Translation: In 5, 10 or 15 years, they'll drag one of their clerks off the loading dock where s/he is having a smoke break and put them on the front counter when the line extends out the front door.
Have gnu, will travel.
"... and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx"
Yeah, its called a monopoly, a coercive government enforced monopoly. Its hard to have real, fair competition when your competitor makes the rules and can send people with guns to come and take your money, lock you up, or kill you if you are too good at competing against them.
The article starts from a false assumption: that the postal service must be profitable, or at least break even.
Framing the issue this way has nothing to do with what the USPS should or should not carry, or how much they should charge.
Why is that so for the postal service but not for the military, department of transportation, or most any other government agency that provides a service? Universal free mail delivery is something that the citizens of the US want -- or at least did at one time. As a government service, it's something taxpayers agree to pay for.
Now clearly the two authors of this article, management consultants, have a different view of that need. Perhaps they are ideologically inclined to expect that government services should break even or better, in which case, they ought to take on a real challenge and explain to the Pentagon how they can "save" the armed forces. Or perhaps they have a financial interest in private delivery services like FedEX and UPS, who knows? It's clear from early in the article, "Should the federal government continue to compete against the private sector?" that the authors have a sense that somehow there's money to made for UPS, FedEx, and other private delivery services if the postal service was forced to compete on the same level as them. I'm sure they wouldn't advocate for reforming USPS if they thought it would take money away from the private sector.
In any case, before people go trying to reform USPS, let's first decide if we want to continue to support the current expectation of free (for the recipient) door-to-door mail service for everyone in the country everywhere. If citizens clearly want that, then budget (and tax) for it, and shut up about billion dollar "losses" that pale compared to the "losses" racked up by other services we expect as a modern nation. On the other hand, if the country decides that hey, we don't need to deliver everywhere any more, then go ahead, revamp the postal service to be just another profit-motivated competitor.
There is one reason the USPS is not going anywhere soon.... The legal system of this country runs on it. Many types of legal correspondence (eviction notices, etc) use certified mail and delivery confirmation.
If a 3rd party is entrusted to handle legal documents with certain requirements then who knows what might happen. The UPS/FedEx guy can't even be bothered to wait 1min for the door to be opened, they just slap on an illegible sticker and run like the zombies are coming.
That said, the USPS is a big steaming pile of poo, especially in the tracking department. You only find out were it is once it has been delivered, so what's the point. Any of the other shippers let me know exactly where my packages are.
The local delivery has gone in the shitter too. They seem to be having problems finding good people to work for them. I constantly get other people's mail or they get mine. One time the guy came back and I had to give him the mail he had tossed in the slot because it was all for a house 3 doors down.
USPS is doomed as long as they continue to outsource their long haul transport to FedEx and UPS. The only way for them to turn it around is to make their service so efficient that the other carriers come to them for long haul transport.
cat
They just look like they are because of the need they have for muscles to tote those packages.
Illegals.
New Economic Perspectives
My greatest fear is that current problems with the USPS will cause it to be privatized, which will be a disaster of EPIC proportions. The USPS is the most efficient mail delivery organization in the WORLD. They delivery more pieces of mail in a week than Fedex and UPS deliver combined in a year. And they do it for under 50 cents a letter. Right now, the Postal service is in trouble because everyone in the U.S. has a legal RIGHT to mail delivery. They have to maintain Post Offices, delivery trucks, sorting centers, etc. for every single U.S. citizen. There are places where mail is still delivered by MULE because there are no paved roads. And the USPS doesn't compete with FED-UPS, it SUBSIDIZES them. The USPS spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year maintaining a national address database - which FED-UPS buys for $50 BUCKS on CD and uses themselves without contributing to the maintenance. You know what FED-UPS does when they get a package for delivery to a remote location - they mail it with USPS. If the USPS gets privatized, mail delivery to remote locations will mostly disappear. And as far as price goes, do you think FED-UPS would leave the price of delivering letters at the break-even point?? H@ll no, you'd be paying $2.50 a letter. The loss of the Postal Service would be like privatizing road construction. Most roads would crumble away, and the profitable ones would have outrageous tolls on them. But since FED-UPS can lobby Congress and the USPS can't I'm sure their demise is inevitable.
Peter is crying "wolf". This whole thing is a red-haring to further sell out valuable government services to private industries. If you read the USPS annual report, the cover page shows a price comparison chart with other countries, with subtext of the USPS priding itself on having the lowest prices in the world. Did it ever to occur to anyone that maybe they can't get in the black b/c you they have the "lowest prices in the world"!? I did a quick calculation on the delivery figures they supplied --raise the price of regular stamp 2 to 3 cents and they are in the black --and still tied for the lowest prices in the world with Canada.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Priority Mail is a pretty economical way to ship things. Especially with their once size, one price boxes. And the secret is Priority takes 2 to 3 days to cross the country.
The other thing that the postal service carries a lot of is junk mail. Every two weeks I throw out about 15 pounds of junk mail.
I can see it becoming maybe 3 days a week delivery and pickup for letters, daily for packages etc. Postal mail has just become irrelevant in the modern day. All my bills are paid online with the exception of one thing I still have to write a check for every month.
That's exactly the crappy attitude I run up against. A big hearty "Fuck you!" to those who actually believe that shit.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Actually, the post office does not deliver to my house. I have to drive 6 miles to get my mail from their "cluster box." UPS and Fedex deliver to my house. Conversely, given some of the people the post office has delivering mail, I'm just as glad they don't drop by my house.
Send an e-mail to your (very local) post office 5 blocks away. They print the e-mail, then send it in the mail to your destination. Only a minor ($2) charge for printing, paper and envelope.
Perhaps the analogy you were reaching for is something akin to IPv6?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
"That's exactly the crappy attitude I run up against. A big hearty "Fuck you!" to those who actually believe that shit."
That doesn't exclude it being accurate. The only reason to go cash-only and not use disposable credit cards is paranoia. The Beast still records your transactions. :)
BTW if you really believe that shit, man up and die fighting instead of playing games (I has no Mark, so I be gwine up to Hebbin'!). No respectable Imaginary Friend condones such mewling weakness.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Here's a (simple) example of how the USPO fails.
PO boxes. Are routed to their database id's. What the fuck?
If anyone here is familiar with computers, you know that database id's are used internally to cross-reference external object names. In other words, as far as the outside world is concerned, database id's don't exist.
Except at the USPO, where database id's are used to send your mail! PO Box 3794281, anyone?
The USPO would greatly benefit by getting on the information bandwagon, and cross-referencing their PO Box Id's, to actual, sendable mail addresses. For example, PO Box 3794281 maps to "Jane's Hair Care Products," and "Jane Simpson," and nothing else. If you try to send a letter to PO Box 3794281, it fails. You have to know WHO you are sending mail, to get it to work, just spamming boxes should NOT work.
Why is this cool? Because Jane's Hair Care Products could lift town and move to another location, re-number their PO Box and it would still work.
The USPO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND HOW COMPUTERS WORK. In this age, that is fail.
That doesn't exclude it being accurate.
Bullshit! No wonder we get the damn politicians we get.. You people who support this crap are the problem. I guess you all are just too rich to give a damn.. Must be nice.
This disposable credit card thing might be useful, but the fees might be a rip off... See, contrary to your prejudices and bigotry on the matter, this is the bigger issue..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
For personal delivery AND pickup, it would be better to delete Wednesday. For businesses that don't work on the weekend, it's better to delete Saturday. It's stupid to deliver mail that won't be checked until Monday. But, people do personal business on Saturday, and if there aren't Saturday pickups, they will have to drive to the PO with their outgoing mail. Also, some people are clever enough to have their valuable stuff delivered on Saturday, when they can be home to get to the mailbox before someone else does.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
See any town messengers around still? Sorry USPS, but your glory days are gone and anything you "digitize" would just be a tax shoved down our throats.
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
Congress just recently outlawed the shipment of tobacco products by USPS. Whoops! There goes a huge chunk of their business. Now I have to rely on UPS to deliver my beloved snus, and I have to make sure I'm home to sign for it. USPS used to deliver it faster and cheaper.
Oh, if you're a smoker, quit now! Change to snus to get your nicotine. It's delicious and virtually harmless.
I ship USPS to Taiwan all the time. No matter what it is, it just sits there in customs for 1 to 2 weeks. It doesn't matter if it's a fucking box of chocolates (my girlfriend lives there), they open it up and inspect it at great length.
If I ship UPS, it gets there on top and my package isn't mutilated by Taiwan customs, for some unknown reason. That said, it's 2~3x cheaper to ship USPS...
Your argument is valid, but you are arguing about social values to people with no social values. Me, myself and I. That is all of society to them.
That certain things like the utility grid, public transport, mail, air traffic control make no sense as non-monopolies, doesn't fit in their tiny little world of "as long as I get it cheap I don't care about anything else".
Would you think it a good idea if airtraffic control was a non-monopoly, that just anyone could start directing aircraft around the world?
And how about true competition on the grid? Ten different raillines next to each other, competing with each other. 20 electric cables coming in your house.
And indeed, 20 different mailboxes. London forced telecoms to have public phoneboxes, so you had multiple sitting next to each other because that is how you show competition while they weren't in remote areas because companies weren't intrested in that.
Mail is "costly" because you can post a letter anywhere and it will be delivered. if you only payed for delivering it from major city to major city it would be cheaper but the service as a whole would collapse AND THEN even those profitable services would collapse.
This is most easily explained with public transport. Clearly trains running empty are costing money. So any service outside rush hour should be cut. but that means that if you have to be an half hour early at work, you can't use it, and if you stay an half hour late, you can't. So, even the rush hour service looses out because people are forced to seek alternatives anyway.
Some services just have to be run as a monopoly and with a build in in-effiency if you want the service to be the service it is.
There is no need for a US postal service that only delivers to high profit areas. Mail has to be mailed to anyone or it stops being mail and insteads becomes a courier service.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's a private company granted a monopoly. As such, the USPO is the worst kind of inefficiency and an egregious example of abusing government money to socialize the unprofitable aspects of postal service. The profitable aspects, that of parcel services, is given over to other private companies. Then there's the subsidized junk mail problem.
Between Amazon and eBay, and everything in between, there are more than enough small and large packages shipped here there and everywhere to keep a good profit. USPTO could be profitable if managed as if it was intended to be proftiable as a company or provide a services as a government agency. Instead it does neither, as a victim of B.I.G.G.A.S. ideology.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
When I saw this story I was thinking about digital age type services the USPS could provide, something like am escrow or PayPal service but with guarantees on delivery, receipts, and letting you check that you were delivered what you expected. Things that would be more trustworthy and dependable having a reliable government official involved.
But then I remembered a presentation I heard at a conference last week. Many top companies like Microsoft, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle, etc. were there in Tokyo at the IT Pro conference. They were all talking about cloud computing as the future. And then came the President of Kuroneko Yamato, or in English Yamato Transport. Kuroneko means black cat, which is their logo. It was a very impressive talk and they showed a video which underscored customer satisfaction, the satisfaction their employees feel when thanked, and unstinting effort. They deliver in snow. If USPS could deliver service like Yamato they could beat out UPS and Fedex too. The moral being that digital technology is fine not more important than the delivery service itself.
...let it take on UPS and FedEx." While technically true, it could never happen. I work closely with the USPS as I own an independent pack & ship store and I've seen first hand the culture of sloth that exists at the USPS and my mail carrier even complains about it. If they were ever to compete against UPS or FedEx they would have to drastically adjust the attitude of many of their employees. I would like to say that this culture exists due to the USPS being unionized and essentially being a government agency where it's impossible to get fired but it's not that simple either. I talk to my UPS driver all the time when he stops in to do pick ups and UPS is also unionized and it's damn near impossible to get fired from there as well, yet they operate efficiently and profitably. I don't know what the fix is for the USPS, other than to fire everybody and start over if they want to compete with UPS and FedEx.
This spring a friend with a small business sent a bid in to a US Government agency via USPS express "guaranteed one day delivery." He verified with the clerk at the post office that the destination (downtown in a large city less than 250 miles away) was included in the delivery guarantee area. Since the deadline for bids was in 2 days, he figured he had a margin in case it took an extra day. It took 4 days. No refund was offered under the "guarantee." When the winner was announced he found he would have had the winning bid. Another former USPS customer is born.
"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
Remove the monopoly and ordinary letters and postcards will cost several dollars to send. A better idea is for the USPS to start raising rates substantially, at least 30% per year, on 3rd class mail (catalogs & junk mail), most of which is the postal equivalent of spam, which is now sent at well below first class letter rates. Since the purveyors of those exciting offers and unbelievable bargains have no alternative means of distributing their waste paper (they're already using the net, too), they'll pay the higher rates or quit spamming our postal mailboxes. Considering that over two thirds of what hits my mailbox now is 3rd class mail that I simply recycle, the extra cash and/or reduced volume should help the USPS financially. I'd be willing to pay for the occasional paper-based catalog I really want in exchange for decreasing the quantity of junk.
"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
Sure. Then you'll have hundreds of people tramping up to your porch to put stuff in your mailbox. You want every bum in society in your yard and on your porch?
Entirely correct. The APWU in the postal system is complaining about safety. OSHA has responded and has fined the Providence P&DC alone 558,000 dollars for electrical safety and training violations. The entire Postal Service infrastructure is being examined and there is already millions of dollars of fines to force compliance with electrical safety and training requirements. No Union, no safety. Safety costs. Now I have electrical safety equipment and training and soon the proper insulated tools will be arriving thanks to union action.
I still get paper bills. I get come-ons to sign up for "e-delivery" of my statement, which means an email saying "click here to go to our crappy website, enter another username and another password, to download a pdf copy of your bill." I don't want that. If they would just email the PDF I would be happy, but USPS could:
1. Provide a truly secure upload facilty for vendors for their PDF invoices.
2. Provide a truly secure portal for people with addresses or post office boxes to retrieve their stuff.
3. Use the full faith and credit of the US government to hunt down and kill any attempted hacks or frauds using their legendary "It is a felony to mess with the mail" powers.
Companies should be thrilled with this. They don't have to cobble a craptastic website together, or spend all day sending out emails. I would be thrilled to have all my invoices in one place.
A second phase could involve partnerships with financial institutions to allow the metadata of these invoices to be accessible to your online bill payer system.
Seriously. This would appeal to so many people and would be so easy.
The only potentially serious problem has to do with transferring the "account" since I envision it being associated with a physical address. When the house changes hands, the locks get changed. Something similar would have to be put in place for this system.