It's weird to me to hear comments like this. To me the postal service just seems like a slow email service with no spam filtering. (Sure they can delivery packages, but they're not unique in that regard).
I get the utility of certified mail and associated services, but I don't really understand why we need first-class/marketing mail service in the 21st century.
I agree it was important infrastructure 250 years ago.
Imagine a world where state or federal government wants to do mail-in voting, or conduct a census, or mail emergency checks to all Americans, or send out tax refunds, or passports, or birth certificates, and private companies refuse to do it, or charge exorbitant rates. Would you prefer:
a) The government can compel private companies to do any of these things at any time whether they want to or not.
b) The government can do these things by itself.
c) None of these things are possible.
Or, imagine a state election that includes a ballot question about raising taxes on large corporations, and the only company that can deliver and collect ballots is Amazon. Can you think of any problems this could cause?
As I said, I understand the utility of services like certified mail. That seems like the appropriate level of care for most of the mailings you mention. You wouldn't want absentee ballots or passports to be lost, right? Or if my county wants to summon me for jury duty, they probably should pay the $3 to make sure I get the summons.
At heart, though, my beef with USPS stems from my hatred of spam. They're a service I interact with multiple times weekly... when I move their garbage from my mailbox to my trashcan. When 95% of my interactions with them are negative, it's hard for me to understand how some people can like them.
Nobody likes marketing mail. If you think you know how to convince Congress to let the postal service operate like a normal government service and stop trying to make a profit, let me know how I can help.
HN has this conversation about web services all the time. "I'm tired of seeing ads" -> "Somebody has to pay server costs, would you prefer all content be paywalled?" -> "Someone should implement a micropayment system so we can all support these things collectively."
Only here we already have the centralized payment system in the form of taxes, but it turns out when you use that to subsidize USPS operations everyone still complains.
If we get rid of the post office for last-mile delivery of anything to anywhere, we can be virtually assured of having to bail out the major package delivery services every few years.
It's harder to afford stable housing with a stable mailing address than it is to afford internet access.
And those without internet access can go to public libraries or even get free public wifi in many cities. Even some homeless shelters provide wifi now, which is much easier for them than providing mail service. Technically, I think those without a permanent address can register to still receive mail at a post office, but that seems more difficult to manage and more limiting than finding internet access.
I get the utility of certified mail and associated services, but I don't really understand why we need first-class/marketing mail service in the 21st century.
I agree it was important infrastructure 250 years ago.