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Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service
An anonymous reader writes "Some of the folks responsible for developing and promoting e-mail, e-commerce and social media are banding together in an attempt to save the US Postal Service, the institution arguably most threatened by the technological developments of the past few years. As mail volume continues to plummet and more Americans use the Internet to pay bills and keep in touch, Google executives, social media experts and some of the most passionate tech evangelists are planning to meet in Crystal City in mid-June to sort out how to save and remake the nation's mail delivery service. The conference, PostalVision 2020, is designed to bring together the people who understand what this technology has done, is doing and will do to digital commerce and communication in America. USPS anticipates losing about $7 billion during the fiscal year that ends in September and is in the process of eliminating 7,500 postmaster and administrative positions to save money."
guess i'm not sure why it should be saved. just because it's been around awhile?
Just make FCS an even dollar and get on with things !! Mail is cheap here - too cheap !!
Government is shrinking. Please don't interrupt the process.
Life in Orange County
Every time I've been to the post office, there's been 15+ people in line. I have a hard time believing the mail system is on the way out any time soon. Telegraphs didn't kill it, telephones didn't kill it, why would email kill it?
In other news, an alliance of the nation's best and brightest thinkers have come together in an attempt to save the buggy-whip industry.
- Alaska Jack
Here they solved the issue in an elegant way: The Post office has been granted a banking license, and the banking activity is subsidizing the postal activity. Mind you, in the central post office where I live (Turin, pop. 1,000,000 more or less), there are about 20 booths, 15 for banking, two for receiving mail and two for outgoing mail, so the service is mediocre, but banking has effectively stemmed the flow of post office closures.
Mind you, I cannot but wonder....what would have happened if they auctioned off the post service altogether with the general delivery obligations? maybe large banks would have been interested? and think of the multiple conflicts of interest, since the Post is state owned.... no banking licences in the sticks where a post office is present? is there a ban on opening more post offices in rich neighborhoods? After all, banks are after assets, not post traffic...
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
As someone who shipped a lot of packages through USPS, the solution is very simple. Get a real time tracking system in par with UPS and FedEx (not bullshit overnight updates) and make the insurance for package claims less of a joke than UPS and FedEx.
As bills and correspondence mails have gone down, online buying and selling has taken it's place. But, most people are uncomfortable sending their packages through USPS. The tracking is only delivery confirmation and that costs extra at the post office. With cell phone technology, it should be trivial to implement real time updates.
If a package is lost, the insurance system is a joke. It takes forever and you can only correspond by mail. The insurance is ridiculously expensive and when you need it, it's a massive headache.
If they just fix those above issues, then lots of business would come swarming to them from online shippers.
Another thing, their rates are kinda screwed up. For heavy packages, the rates are much much higher than UPS and FedEx. It comes down to only making sense to send packages by USPS for under 4-5 lbs. They probably should also do the sweetheart deals with big companies that UPS and FedEx do - like shipping for pennies on the dollar for large volume shippers.
And, there are some sink holes like in Bell, CA that if packages get there, they come out weeks later (famous for losing Oscar votes). There are a few of them across the country.
I think USPS should move towards being more geared towards packages. But, that's just my end of the pond where I shipped packages through USPS. Maybe junk mail is the cash cow, or certified mail.
Google should just buy the USPS. Then they'd have everyone's name and address, could mount cameras on the carrier's heads for mapping and insert advertising into each batch of mail.
Actually, that's what the USPS should do to raise some cash: sell us out to advertisers. It's not like I don't just throw away 95% of whats in the box anyway. Sifting past a few more dead trees wouldn't really be hard.
Chug along in the black, year over year, without any government $$$.
Not surprising, when you consider what a miserable experience it is to go to the post office. Lines, attitudes, incomprehensible forms, and shlockly-looking people.
It's like the DMV meets Walmart.
>> arguably most threatened by the technological developments of the past few years
I disagree! They are most threatened by gas prices! US Postal was originally transported on trains and hand sorted while the train was going to its' destination. Hand sorting on a train meant that everything was ready to be delivered on arrival rather than sorting at the destination postal facility. Airlines under bid railroads to get mail service but now they are having trouble competing. I see no reason why we shouldn't support our railroads and go back to delivering mail from the rails.
Unlike, say, UPS, the US Postal Service is not and has never been a for-profit corporation. It's an agency of the US Government, required by law to exist, serve all citizens, and is granted a special monopoly status. If it's in the public interest, it can run at a deficit, take up unprofitable jobs like serving the people that live in the middle of nowhere (which many private competitors refuse to ship to), or keep prices lower than they would be in a pure market-driven system.
At worst, if the mail volume drops dramatically, they could move to having fewer delivery days in areas that don't get a lot of mail. And they may well be able to use technology to improve their sorting and delivery system, but as it stands they have processes that put FedEx to shame.
I am officially gone from
Ha, this is a laugh. Google and the other Ph.Ds are going to sit down and dream up some (what seems to them to be) good ideas. Then those ideas will die in a hail of lawsuits when they encounter hard, cold reality. The Ph.Ds write a paper about how people like us are too smart to have our ideas understood, and move on to the next conference, hopefully in Aspen this time (Crystal City, ugh if it were in the midwest it'd be flyover territory).
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Perhaps they could climate Saturday delivery for letter mail. Do I really need junk mail and bills six days a week?
be more like UPS and Fexed they are doing good and that is with UPS union drivers.
Here's my suggestion to make the post office more useful. Let everyone register a postal address that is dissociated from a physical address. Then when I move, instead of filing a change of address form and hoping that everyone who wants to send mail to me ever again sends it in the next year, I can just tell the post office "Yeah, that postal address should now be delivered to this *new* physical address"
The biggest problem is the fundamental issue that individual residents make the flawed assumption that they are the post office's customers, when in fact they are the post office's product. They are a product being sold, and if you want to know who's buying you, just look at the ton of spam in your mailbox. Any demands for better service aren't heard as dissatisfied customers, but as disgruntled products.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Now it seems that this is the time to contact Kevin Costner.
Just make it more like FedEx and UPS - Instant Tracking where you can see what city its in, at every point of the way (updated every few hours). Then get every mail-order company to offer it (amazon, newegg, etc) Other options include having a new class of mail cost for companies like Netflix and GameFly, where they charge a laddering fee per amount of mail (1000 letter, 3000 letters, etc) - may already be in place as I dk much about these things. Force those companies (netflix/gamefly) to redesign the mailers for their machines/redesign the machines for their mailers. (reduce overhead while charging fees in the meantime) They need to either reduce overhead or increase revenue. They've been focused on reducing overhead, I think they need to focus more on increasing revenue - branch out into other areas in the mail services field.
Wish I had a spam box for all the junk mail I receive.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
Government bureaucracy + unionized workers. I highly doubt it can be "fixed".
Do you have ESP?
1. dissolve the corporation/entity (nullifying all existing union contracts and pension obligations)
2. re-hire all the actually useful employees at a reasonable or greater wage because you can get rid of the dead weight the union forced you to keep
3. switch from defined benefit plans to defined contribution retirement plans
I bet the postal service would be solvent if they just did that.
If they're losing money because of the fixed cost of collecting less mail from blue USPS mailboxes daily, and the fixed cost of delivering less mail to people's homes daily, then they should just decrease the collection rate and the delivery rate proportional to the decline in mail level.
Honestly I don't care what they do except for eliminating junk mail. I'm lucky if I get ONE piece of valid mail a month, yet my mabox is full every day.... and yes iv opted out at every opportunity I can find. I loath the uspo because all they seem to do is deliver trash to my door and in it hide my water bill n occasional government notices.
The solution is to close the brick-and-mortar post offices -- which the government has no clue how to run effectively -- and offer cheap franchising packages. We'll see new "Mailbox Etc." outlets open on every corner. Then the USPS can focus on what they do brilliantly -- door to door delivery.
FedEx and UPS could EASILY pick up this traffic. Yes, they'd have to hire a bunch of people. Good thing there will be lots of postal workers becoming unemployed! I'd be perfectly OK with my mail carrier only showing up once a week for regular mail and dropping it off in a big bundle in order to save money, and only make a special trip for packages if the sender pays normal FedUps rates to get it there within X days. They only pick up my trash twice a week, and I'm OK with that.
Hell, for regular mail (non-packages), UPS/FedEx could charge a small monthly fee to deliver to people's houses at all - if you don't want to pay, pick your mail up at the office. These companies could also sell a mail-digitization service like Earth Class Mail - let them scan all my dead-tree-spam and send me PDF's via email.
I'm also perfectly OK with hiking the crap out of the cost to mail a letter. People are bitching that it's gone up to 40-some cents. Make it $3. Why? All the people who chop down forests to tell me I can save money on breast implants and Bright House cable will knock it off, and the people I actually do business with (credit card companies, the power company, etc.) will be incentivized to make it easier to get electronic billing.
The postal service was a great idea, and we should all thank Ben Franklin for it. Used to be that milk delivery was a good idea too, and it got outmoded. Society moves on. This service has long outlived its usefulness and consumers have been telling it to go away loud and clear for over a decade. Get the hint. Government and government-backed agencies (yes, I know USPS is self-funded now) should NOT be competing with private industry. Where private industry can do it, and do it better, we should let them.
I just went to report this incident since it occurred to me they probably have a form to do so...
Thanks for your email.
A US Postal Services® representative will reply to your email within 2 to 3 business days.
The case number for request is: Problem processing ticket service request
Stay classy, USPS. They don't even listen to their own automated systems, they're not going to listen to a bunch of eggheads.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The USPS is a government monopoly. End the monopoly and let free enterprise competition enter the equation. This proven method will increase the efficiency of letter delivery more than any central committee.
I have two suggestions for mail.
1. I have no need to have mail picked up and delivered to my house 6, or even 5 days a week. I would be willing to drive to the post office a couple of times a week. Perhaps most people would. I am sure there are people for whom that isn't practical: they should pay a premium for home pickup/delivery.
2. Stamps should be RFID tags. Businesses who create large volumes of mail would associate the address information with the tag ID at the time the mail is created. For people who hand address envelopes, the address would be keyed & associated at the post office, once. From that point on the mail could be handled - sorted & routed - automatically.
If you get a letter from the italian post office, is it a poste.it note?
*ducks incoming tomatoes*
Raise the damned rates! And I do mean by a substantial amount.
If your customer base has shrunken, you've lost out to a competitor. If it's essentially vanished, you offer nothing they don't. Despite what may be said, the Post Office isn't dead -- it's just broke. You want to mail a letter? You want to make sure it gets there?
Five bucks to mail a personal letter. You may hate it, but when it comes time to mail a letter to your girlfriend in California, five bucks won't seem like such a burden after all. And that's the key -- capturing that novelty market that uses it from time to time for the physical sentiment of having an object sent by one person in their hands.
We still need a postal system, because we still sometimes need to send physical documents, packages, etc. What we DON'T need is mail delivery six days a week. Mail delivery could be cut down to only four days a week. Carriers could have larger routes, but two or more days in which to run them. The changes which need to be made are not complicated, but the bottom line is that we need fewer postal employees, and that's where it's going to get tough.
Proverbs 21:19
Downsizing an operation is slow and painful. Downsizing employee benefits more so. I have a good friend who is a rural letter carrier. Her job is to drive up to your mailbox and put stuff in it. No offense to anyone, but this is not rocket science. She makes more money than I do in IT, and has vastly better benefits. She also has a no-layoff clause in her contract that basically means, as long as she has a couple of years seniority and doesn't shoot up the place, she can't be fired. There are also redundant (and expensive) levels of management like you wouldn't believe. This (somehow) needs to be moved closer to reality for a private business, which the post office employees all claim to work for.
I have no problem with 44 cents to deliver a letter. I have no problem with 88 cents - it's still a bargain, and an essential service. My opinion, the bulk mailers get too good a deal; if they can't afford to send me junk for almost nothing, so be it. And I do realize this will downsize the printing and bulk mailing businesses, too. Better that than lose mail service entirely.
The United States Postal Service, while operated by the United States government, is required to be self-sustaining. Yet, it is not allowed to be autonomous. It seems like every time they try to cut costs - closing redundant retail locations, eliminating Saturday delivery, etc. - they face extreme opposition from Congress (often saving because the waste benefits their districts). In addition, they are prevented by law from raising postage rates above the rate of inflation - no matter what their costs do. I'd hate to try to operate a business under those conditions.
That being said, there are some areas where efficiency could be improved. I recently started doing mass mailings for my business, and was appalled by some aspects of their processes - the user interface of their employee-facing software was terrible, for instance (and, perhaps more surprisingly, veteran employees seemed unaware of its quirks).
I think that we (as a country) need to realize that delivering small mailpieces to every household and business in the United States will never be a profitable venture, and be willing to ensure its financial viability through subsidies while also enabling and encouraging efforts to improve efficiency. UPS and Fedex are profitable because they skim off the lucrative parts of the business - large package and express delivery - leaving the rest for the USPS. The USPS serves a very valuable role in this regard, especially for certain less-advantaged populations. We can't expect it to operate like a for-profit business while simultaneously demanding that it fulfill these money-losing - yet necessary - responsibilities.
In Victorian London, where postage was the only way to communicate, there were 3 mail deliveries per day. You could toss a letter in the box in the morning, and good odds your recipient would have it in-hand by the evening.
Now, in the age of email and massive abilities to communicate with each other, mail is only useful where the actual physical delivery of something is needed - we have better ways to communicate information.
I'd say that we could easily now drop to 3 or even 2 mail deliveries per week and be completely ok. (Personally, I could go to 1/week or even lower, but I'd imagine most people need it more than me.)
-Styopa
Adapt or die. I'm not bailing out another failing business.
Mail is down to a trickle. Every time I see the mail lady drive down my street of about 20 houses, she stops at oh, 5 of them, unless it's a day we all get some junkmail.
So, lets back it down to 3 days a week. Mon, Wed Fri? Mon, Wed, Sat?
And for rural areas, lets limit pickup. I used to live down a 1/2 mile dirt road. We rarely got any mail, however, every day the mail lady drove to the end of the road to see if our flag was up. What a waste. How about we make some community drop boxes that can be checked without getting out, going behind it, and dumping a bag.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I would gladly -- nay, eagerly -- pay a small monthly fee to the USPS in exchange for the mail carrier performing one simple service: spam filtering.
Take all the flyers, coupons, and other advertisements, along with all the mail not addressed to me (I very frequently get mail not only for the previous residents who sold us the home 2+ years ago, but for the residents prior to them, and the residents prior to those residents going back at least a decade), and deliver those items straight to the trash.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Seriously. With the exception of certain legal documents (which should be converted to a secure digital format of some kind) why do we *need* to try and save/rely on paper mail? What possible benefit is there?
I check my mail every day, not because I actually get mail every day, but because every local store and service provider in the area send me crap that fills up my box. I immediately toss all of this into the garbage (not the recycling because the garbage is what is next to our mailboxes at my complex and I don't want to carry all this crap back to my flat).
I get maybe one or two pieces of mail a week that is actually for me, they are all bills for services that for whatever reason won't go completely paperless, even though I pay them online.
Ave Molech Setting
Why try to save it? If it's failing the market test, it should die. Rescind the Federal monopoly that the USPS enjoys, and let UPS, Fedex, etc. figure out a profitable way to deliver letters.
Nothing is wrong with the Post Office. If Congress would stop siphoning off $5 Billion a year it would more than break even. This is being done partly to support our massive government spending and partly to punish postal workers for having the audacity to belong to unions which try to guarantee a decent standard of living.
I think that the demise of USPS points to one thing: the external interface to offices is ceasing to be paper based. The information is still transferred, but no more is it done using paper as the medium. It does not necessarily indicate that offices are going truly paperless. Some are, some aren't. The definite trend is to transport less paper between offices, and I use the term widely to include both corporate giants and each home's "office". Within the offices, though, it's hard to infer the amount of information that gets printed out. Certainly as soon as it has to leave the building, it's converted to electronic form. Maybe all they do is scan things: there must be a good reason why Xerox advertises their document scanning & management services in prime-time spots in many U.S. markets.
I'm quite happy, though, that we finally woke up to the fact that shipping paper around is just a huge waste. Think of the millions of gallons of fuel already saved by not having USPS ship as much stuff around, their workers not having to drive to work, etc.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
They are only in the RED because they are required to handle their pensions differently than other entities.
If they were able to stop having pensions they would probably be just fine. However the Constitution gives Congress the authority to establish Post Offices which means they can do as they see fit. So they saddle the Post Office with requirements which can best be described as "What is your Whim today Mr Congressman???"
Yes they have some archaic work rules and some horrid processes (like you can ship your publication with them but if you use that rate they are not even required to deliver it - I mean, WTF? I paid you to deliver something they legally can lose) but they do make money.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Maybe it's because I live in NYC, but I've always found USPS service to be, well, excellent.
At the post office, the lines are reasonable, the staff friendly (although I do use the APC for most services.)
I've receive most of my eBay deliveries via regular mail, and it works fine.
The mailperson who works my block knows me by sight.
I actually prefer to use Priority Mail over UPS or Fedex. It's cheap and easy for one, and the post office won't sit on the package if they can deliver it faster than the TOS. If they can do it overnight, they'll deliver it overnight. If it's gonna take three days, they'll deliver it in three days. (UPS? If the deal is to deliver it in two days, its gonna take two days, even if the location is only thirty miles away.)
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
All they do is drop off a load of trash at my door every day.
> tech evangelists are planning to meet in Crystal City in mid-June to sort out how to save and remake the nation's mail delivery service
A notebook type device providing secure, digitally signed, irrevocable, end-to-end delivery of most all that is currently being delivered on paper. It also functions as an electronic yellow pages and phone book that automatically updates itself, and you can do financial bookings using it.
all those forms for cert/registered mail...can't they have one form that is easier to use ? some label printer for those forms ? preprinted forms with IRS address at tax season ? you wait on a long line to get some nice stamps, and the guy only has one type of stamp that you don't like, *and he can't get a different type of stamp*
un effin believable
how about a bag for the 40 bucks of stamps you just bought on a rainy day ?
Until you can buy something on ebay, craigs list, or similar and have the product emailed to you a physical post office is needed. (last time I looked the transporter hadn't yet been invented). The USPS is needed to keep USPS, FEDX, and others honest. The USPS is still the best buy in shipping for media mail (books, computer disks, etc) and if you think that all printed media is going away you are wrong.
You are 1/3 right
the USPS is a goverment monopoly that provides (roughly) equal service to everyone in the country, rich or poor, NYC or Alaska.
If you go to a private company, it may be cheaper, but aside from cutting wages for rank and file, and greatly boosting wages in the c suite, the main way they will save mmoney is cherry picking - what happens in health insurance.
you live in NYC, in an apt building, doesn't cost anything to deliver mail. You live in Alaska, you outta luck.
just what the health insurance companies do - you sick, no health insurance for you !!
There are legal reasons why mail must be delivered once each business day. For one thing if we got mail only once a week all bills would have to have their legal due dates extended by two weeks in some cases. E mail delivery isn't guaranteed, mail delivery by the post office IS. So not getting a bill by email would probably be a legal defense for the bill not being overdue. Lot's of laws would have to be changed (and challenged) if the postal service was eliminated or greatly modified.
Eliminate the junk mail discounts/subsidies, shrink the work force once the volume drops off.
Train the remaining workforce to actually be highly productive and friendly.
Success.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
But the entire reason the USPS is failing is obstinate unionized management who are bilking the organization out of billions. It needs to be privatized and allowed (because it's not too big; nothing is too big) to fail. See more here: http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/usps
When UPS says I'll get a package "on Friday", I've had it show up as late as 9pm, if at all.
When USPS says I'll get a package "on Friday", it's always exactly at 4pm.
I prefer consistency.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
PBQR BS RGUVPNY ORUNIVBE SBE CNGVRAGF: 1. QB ABG RKCRPG LBHE QBPGBE GB FUNER LBHE QVFPBZSBEG. Vaibyirzrag jvgu gur cngvrag'f fhssrevat zvtug pnhfr uvz gb ybfr inyhnoyr fpvragvsvp bowrpgvivgl. 2. OR PURRESHY NG NYY GVZRF. Lbhe qbpgbe yrnqf n ohfl naq gelvat yvsr naq erdhverf nyy gur tragyrarff naq ernffhenapr ur pna trg. 3. GEL GB FHSSRE SEBZ GUR QVFRNFR SBE JUVPU LBH NER ORVAT GERNGRQ. Erzrzore gung lbhe qbpgbe unf n cebsrffvbany erchgngvba gb hcubyq. % N PBQR BS RGUVPNY ORUNIVBE SBE CNGVRAGF: 4. QB ABG PBZCYNVA VS GUR GERNGZRAG SNVYF GB OEVAT ERYVRS. Lbh zhfg oryvrir gung lbhe qbpgbe unf npuvrirq n qrrc vafvtug vagb gur gehr angher bs lbhe vyyarff, juvpu genafpraqf nal zrer creznarag qvfnovyvgl lbh znl unir rkcrevraprq. 5. ARIRE NFX LBHE QBPGBE GB RKCYNVA JUNG UR VF QBVAT BE JUL UR VF QBVAT VG. Vg vf cerfhzcghbhf gb nffhzr gung fhpu cebsbhaq znggref pbhyq or rkcynvarq va grezf gung lbh jbhyq haqrefgnaq. 6. FHOZVG GB ABIRY RKCREVZNAGNY GERNGZRAG ERNQVYL. Gubhtu gur fhetrel znl abg orarsvg lbh qverpgyl, gur erfhygvat erfrnepu cncre jvyy fheryl or bs jvqrfcernq vagrerfg. % N PBQR BS RGUVPNY ORUNIVBE SBE CNGVRAGF: 7. CNL LBHE ZRQVPNY OVYYF CEBZCGYL NAQ JVYYVATYL. Lbh fubhyq pbafvqre vg n cevivyrtr gb pbagevohgr, ubjrire zbqrfgyl, gb gur jryy-orvat bs culfvpvnaf naq bgure uhznavgnevnaf. 8. QB ABG FHSSRE SEBZ NVYZRAGF GUNG LBH PNAABG NSSBEQ. Vg vf furre neebtnapr gb pbagenpg vyyarffrf gung ner orlbaq lbhe zrnaf. 9. ARIRE ERIRNY NAL BS GUR FUBEGPBZVATF GUNG UNIR PBZR GB YVTUG VA GUR PBHEFR BS GERNGZRAG OL LBHE QBPGBE. Gur cngvrag-qbpgbe eryngvbafuvc vf n cevivyrtrq bar, naq lbh unir n fnperq qhgl gb cebgrpg uvz sebz rkcbfher. 10. ARIRE QVR JUVYR VA LBHE QBPGBE'F CERFRAPR BE HAQRE UVF QVERPG PNER. Guvf jvyy bayl pnhfr uvz arrqyrff vapbairavrapr naq rzoneenffzrag. % N qvfgenhtug cngvrag cubarq ure qbpgbe'f bssvpr. "Jnf vg gehr," gur jbzna vadhverq, "gung gur zrqvpngvba gur qbpgbe unq cerfpevorq jnf sbe gur erfg bs ure yvsr?" Fur jnf gbyq gung vg jnf. Gurer jnf whfg n zbzrag bs fvyrapr orsber gur jbzna cebprrqrq oeniryl ba. "Jryy, V'z jbaqrevat, gura, ubj frevbhf zl pbaqvgvba vf. Guvf cerfpevcgvba vf znexrq `AB ERSVYYF'". % N qbpgbe pnyyf uvf cngvrag gb tvir uvz gur erfhygf bs uvf grfgf. "V unir fbzr onq arjf," fnlf gur qbpgbe, "naq fbzr jbefr arjf." Gur onq arjf vf gung lbh bayl unir fvk jrrxf gb yvir." "Bu, ab," fnlf gur cngvrag. "Jung pbhyq cbffvoyl or jbefr guna gung?" "Jryy," gur qbpgbe ercyvrf, "V'ir orra gelvat gb ernpu lbh fvapr ynfg Zbaqnl." % N jbzna culfvpvna unf znqr gur fgngrzrag gung fzbxvat vf arvgure culfvpnyyl qrsrpgvir abe zbenyyl qrtenqvat, naq gung avpbgvar, rira jura vaqhytrq gb va rkprff, vf yrff unezshy guna rkprffvir crggvat." -- Cheqhr Rkcbarag, Wna 16, 1925 % N jbzna jrag vagb n ubfcvgny bar qnl gb tvir ovegu. Nsgrejneqf, gur qbpgbe pnzr gb ure naq fnvq, "V unir fbzr... bqq arjf sbe lbh." "Vf zl onol nyy evtug?" gur jbzna nakvbhfyl nfxrq. "Lrf, ur vf," gur qbpgbe ercyvrq, "ohg jr qba'g xabj ubj. Lbhe fba (jr nffhzr) jnf obea jvgu ab obql. Ur bayl unf n urnq." Jryy, gur qbpgbe jnf pbeerpg. Gur Urnq jnf nyvir naq jryy, gubhtu ab bar xarj ubj. Gur Urnq ghearq bhg gb or snveyl abezny, vtabevat uvf ynpx bs n obql, naq yvirq sbe fbzr gvzr nf glcvpny n yvsr nf pbhyq or rkcrpgrq haqre gur pvephzfgnaprf. Bar qnl, nobhg gjragl lrnef nsgre gur sngrshy ovegu, gur jbzna tbg n cubar pnyy sebz nabgure qbpgbe. Gur qbpgbe fnvq, "V unir erpragyl cresrpgrq na bcrengvba. Lbhe fba pna yvir n abezny yvsr abj: jr pna tensg n obql bagb uvf urnq!" Gur jbzna, cenpgvpnyyl jrrcvat jvgu wbl, gunaxrq gur qbpgbe naq uhat hc. Fur ena hc gur fgnvef fnlvat, "Wbuaal, Wbuaal, V unir n *jbaqreshy* fhecevfr sbe lbh!" "Bu ab," pevrq Gur Urnq, "abg nabgure UNG!" % Nsgre uvf yrtf unq orra oebxra va na nppvqrag, Ze. Zvyyre fhrq sbe qnzntrf, pynzvat gung ur jnf pevccyrq naq jbhyq unir gb fcraq gur erfg bs uvf yvsr va n jurrypunve. Nygubhtu gur vafhenapr-pbzcnal qbpgbe grfgvsvrq gung uvf obarf unq urnyrq cebcreyl naq gung ur jnf shyyl pncnoyr bs jnyxvat, gur whqtr qrpvqrq sbe gur cynvagvss naq njneqrq uvz $500,000. Jura ur jnf jurryrq vagb gur
If USPS fails and dies off, expect UPS and FedEx to immediately raise their rates.
USPS should expand into the Internet space and become a government controlled provider of internet services - aka, a state mandated ISP. This would help cut down Comcast's obvious monopoly and end this cartel bullshit we've been dealing with for a decade now.
Saturday deliveries only to PO Boxes or for pickup at your local PO.
Charge more for junk mail.
All of those UNION jobs. Unions typically vote democrat, so look for democrat friendly tech firms to try to help prop up a dying institution. If the U.S.P.S. cannot keep up, then they need to go.
If there's a need for delivering mail to Alaska, the market will fill it.
I'm not saying get rid of the Post Office. Right now it is *illegal* to even compete with the Post Office. Let the private market compete and you will see more efficiency. It has worked everywhere else, it will work here.
The insurance market is not analogous as it is highly regulated by government. By the way, insurance is a risk contract. If you are already sick, your risk is 100% so you are not insurable.
The solution was long ago to move into parcels to compete with UPS. That market is much more stable. USPS failed to realise this simple solution and seize it.
Kill it, nothing but a debt anyway.. yeah I know it's 'self-sufficient', but any annual short-fall is covered by US tax dollars.
When a technology (service) becomes obsolete, why do we try to save it?
you either roll with the time or fall behind... USPS (like many govt agencies) have become too comfortable with the 'norm'.
The post office still provides certain truly vital services and shutting it down would cause massive problems throughout the nation. But perhaps it is time to massively scale back the post office? Perhaps if there were fewer deliveries on fewer days it could avoid financial problems. Its main purpose for me for the past year has been netflix videos, which are not time sensitive. When I do have to move a physical option that is time sensitive, I virtually always turn to FedEx or occassionally UPS. I suspect I am in the majority in this.
Please, USPS, I have begged and pleaded with you to stop delivering SPAM -- I have signed up for online bill pay for all of my services, and turned my mailbox into a Planter!
I pay for a P.O. box that I give out to friends and relatives, but I could just as easily pay another more expensive and less SPAM friendly mail service for the odd letter I need delivered (I'd wager that it would be cheaper than the P.O. box).
I don't need double mail, and I don't use USPS for parcels -- I don't want or need mail at home, stop adverts in my variegated ivy! It's not a mailbox anymore!
Save the gasoline, and skip my driveway! Perhaps If I could opt-out somehow, it would save some USPS money? If not, GO DIE, I don't need you anymore, and I'll be happy when the junk mail stops showing up on my doorstep (and littering my yard thanks to the wind). Alternatively, please stop littering or hire delivery personnel that can read -- There is a sign on the waste bin near the entry way: "Place mail here", (Why will you not?) -- I would get fined If I did to someone else's yard what you do to mine...
Please Google, et al. for the sake of the environment and my sanity, let the dead-tree SPAM system get blocked by the very effective filter mechanism of supply and demand.
The public purpose that was the original intent of the post office has not gone away but its mode of transport has changed. The problem is we have let the commercial interests take over that public purpose for this new mode with the predictable result that service to rural and poor areas is practically non-existent, the infrastructure is only built out just enough to meet two year's ago demand, and those responsible are more interested in centralized content control and metering than ensuring delivery between peers.
Why not use the post office to provide a public ISP alternative and build out fiber to home network infrastructure ? Of course that will never be allowed, but its the logical extension of their mission.
What we should be complaining about here is the USPS website and how much it needs to improve.
1) their 'clicknship' app hasn't changed much in years, and works only for Priority Mail and Express Mail. You can't use it to print postage for a regular first class #10 envelope. You can't even use it to print the envelope. This is embarrassing.
2) their 'USPS Shipping Assistant' is a surprisingly bulky .NET desktop application which you can use to print labels and envelopes. It has a lot of quirks, though. When you print an envelope out, it won't print out the ZIP+4 or any barcode.
3) You can't do 'delivery confirmation' with a #10 envelope, only with a padded envelope or package. You can do 'certified mail' with an envelope, but again you can't do it online.
3) Overall, their technology is still geared towards sending people to the counter at the local post office to mail anything other than a Mother's Day card or pay their electric bill.
I think the USPS needs to acquire Stamps.com for a billion dollars, and then let them run the USPS (as a private subsidiary) until their house is in order.
There is no longer any reason the government needs to be involved with communication and/or delivery services. The USPS should be phased out (and should have been long ago).
Seriously, if all its functions can be replaced by better/cheaper/more convenient alternatives, why not let it die?
More than 80% of my mail is unwanted crapvertising that I don't even bother to open or read but now have to dispose of.
Other than for Netflix disks, the demise of the Postal Service would be a good thing in my case.
... have the USPS setup and run municipal ISPs.
I have seen relatives use them for Christmas and birthday presents. It makes me wonder how often that actually happens. Charge for the boxes when someone gets one. Don't give them away free expecting everyone to use them to mail something.
The United Postal Service should be the administering agency for the Internet.
Beyond the suggestions for tracking, etc., here, I'd like to print my own postage.
Today I either buy stamps, get a postage meter from Pitney-Bowes, or visit the PO (or local authorize PO reseller) to get exact postage. Why can't I simply print a QR (or similar) code directly onto the envelope? My inkjet printer is great for names and addresses and has the resolution to handle this easily.
Heck, with the address information encoded in the "stamp", mail could route itself. The code can contain a nonce, and that code could be registered in the database used to scan and forward the object. Tie the nonce to an account number, then charge my PayPal account for mailing/shipping as the item goes through, no need to worry about calculating postage a priori.
Word 2003 had a feature to print the postal Delivery Point Bar Code on envelopes. It worked great. Do the same for postage.
Vision with execution is hallucination.
i dont know about all this 'pension fund' stuff, and '5 billion dollars', i mean, what does that even mean?
these fancy numbers and phrases you throw around, 'held in trust', and 'congress'... what are those things? are they even real words?
i am just a simple cave man lawyer. i may not understand any of what you just said.
there is one thing i do know, though. and that is this;
the last time i went to the post office, they were out of boxes. if they just had enough boxes, that would solve 99% of their problems overnight. overnight!!!!
could be solved if they set up kiosks at airports for people to ship the items they can't, or won't, pass through security.
at $10-20 per item, this could have some potential.
USPS anticipates losing about $7 billion during the fiscal year that ends in September and is in the process of eliminating 7,500 postmaster and administrative positions to save money.
That should work out just right and put the USPS in the black (assuming each one receives a $1 million salary).
Where do you live that delivery by mail is guaranteed? Not in the US, I'm certain.
Go to your local USPS and say "Jimmy sent me a letter 3 weeks ago and I don't have it" - they will conscientiously do their best to find your letter, but if they don't find it, you have NO recourse. None.
-Styopa
Here's a new headline suggestion:
Tech Experts Pitch Postal Service Privatization
Yes, because privatizing fixes everything. Hand the postal service over to the tech industry and I think we'll see postal usage caps in our future.
The Canadian Government started to close smaller postal stations and move them to pharamacies. They rent a 12ft x12ft area, have one clerk, and do the stamp, mail acceptance, registered mail activities and occasionally. They closed many buildings, they are beginning to accept some advertising on the mailboxes. Some of the little post offices in the pharamacies have boxes, so, one can get a postal box that actually resides inside the pharmacy. The pharmacy is a double winner. It pays some of the rents and it draws potential customers into the store. Now all we need to do is put an atm beside them as they accept only cash. The post office eliminates big postal stations, and all the related costs. It also cuts staff. The pharmacy pays for the employee, who when he/she is not busy with postal stuff, can stock shelves, do some other chores. You can also consider taking advertisements on the mail boxes
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Sounds like success to me.
For optimal comment enjoyment, take red pill now.
Get a real time tracking system in par with UPS and FedEx (not bullshit overnight updates) and make the insurance for package claims less of a joke than UPS and FedEx.
In other words, make the USPS a private entity that has to compete, rather than a welfare recipient.
Private industry continues to grease the palms of our politicians to undermine every public institution.
If you study the USPS annual report close enough, you can see that they would be in the black if they could simply raise the price of a stamp 3 cents. However, Congress refuses to allow them to raise the prices, hence they knowingly put them into the red. Then they turn to their constituents and bemoan the post office is loosing money and that we will just have to do something radical!
Kucinich is the only one with a clue on this issue.
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