MyGovCost News & Blog

Kevin says:

I agree that junk mail is bringing in a lot of money but it’s not doing enugoh, the postal service is still failing. There is no point in chasing a revenue that will never meet your costs. Effectively, the postal service is digging their own grave by chasing advertising, it requires many more resources and sets up a doomed system. The more junk mail we get the less appealing mail becomes and the less we use it to communicate, once we stop using it the junk mail revenue will slow and stop. If the postal service continues to base their structure and decisions around junk mail, although it’s a large source of revenue, it will continue to lose money. That said they could probably make some good money buy having advertisements on their online user applications (like the one I mentioned), possibly more it’s better at tracking and costs less to produce for advertisers.So much has changed since the Postal Service was created, it’s not just that we email and call to communicate more, there are physically more houses and we are further spread apart. I believe the answer is to increase efficiency. Like you mentioned, cutting delivery days would do that but it also slows down the time to get your mail which is already one of it’s faults. Though it is a big step, I think stopping residential delivery all together would be the most efficient, mailboxes would allow you receive mail any day of the week and coupled with an electronic system like I mentioned would ease people’s minds that they are not missing anything. I think it would have to be rolled out slow and tested in high density cities first, but eventually could be rolled out over most of the country. It could even start out as an opt in, I’d do it to be able to have a digital copy of all my mail and send it to wherever I am. A slow rollout would allow junk mail revenue to continue longer while also creating revenue with online advertising. Even if everyone goes digital, junk mail will still be seen, just probably not kept, things like post card advertisements would still work pretty well.Strangely, like you mentioned, this system opens the door to having mail sent to a person instead of a physical address. Just identify the person you want the mail to go to and then the system could reference the account to determine where they are. There is no need for a personal physical mailbox, just an available one that’s there when and where you need to pick it up.While mail will decrease, package delivery will grow slowly. More people will be buying products online, but things like books, CD, DVDs, video games, and software will more and more be delivered digitally. I can’t imagine mail becoming obsolete but I can see the USPS dying. How would you suggest the USPS exit? They have so many trucks, buildings, employees, and machines. Has anything like it ever happened before? I imagine that they would have to find a buyer for it all.