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by hooande 5526 days ago
What is going to happen to the Postal Service? In 10-15 years, dead tree mail will be an anachronism. Mass mail campaigns will be much less effective because the current buying generation will have grown up ignoring letters. Will the post office be able to continue to function after losing 80% of it's current volume? Does this mean that we'll be trusting one or many startups to deliver important information from the government?

I also wonder how a world with a much smaller post office would look. I know there are already several startups operating in this space, but it seems like there will be a large opportunity in "replacing printed mail" in the near future.
2 comments
DanI-S 5526 days ago
According to their facts page[1], USPS process 6761 pieces of mail per second. They had a 2009 revenue of $68 billion. They pay $2.1 billion in salaries every two weeks.

Dead tree mail isn't dead just yet; they definitely have enough time to figure out a plan.

[1] http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/postalfacts.htm

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cosmicray 5526 days ago
> Dead tree mail isn't dead just yet; they definitely have enough time to figure out a plan.

Traditional printed mail (flats, letters, etc) will not go away until every person has an iPad (or equivalent) and has broadband. Many many areas of the US are still without broadband access.

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MatthewPhillips 5526 days ago
Mass mailers are already shifting to email (and to a lesser extent SMS and apps).
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