[aacook]

I have been wondering about this argument about the decline. Check out these numbers: https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/

From 2010 to 2019:

-Overall annual operating revenue has increased from $67.1B to $71.1B

-First-class letters has dropped from 77.6B to 54.9B

-Shipping/package volume has grown from 3.3B to 6.2B

-Marketing mail has dropped from 81.8B to 75.7B

I would not call a 29% drop on first-class mail over a 10-year period with a 100% growth in packages a "collapse."

I wonder how this stacks up in comparison to FedEx and UPS who are surely seeing a drop in letters/flats through their system. It would be interesting to track down the same numbers and compare.

People assume UPS can deliver letter-sized envelopes just as well as the USPS but they simply can't. I'm working on https://nanagram.co and up until recently we used UPS. The average delivery was 7-9 days at best with poor tracking. I switched everything over to the USPS in July and even with all the pandemic the post office is more reliable than UPS and also a little cheaper. We've been seeing deliveries in 2-4 days and before the pandemic 1-3 days.