[Traster]

Sure, the but flipside is that you lose the public good. You no longer have a mandated universal service operation which means suddenly you can't send mail to rural locations. And not only can you not send mail to rural locations, all those rural locations can't access services that require mail, so suddenly you've got a problem where people won't be able to set up bank accounts. Now clearly, the mail isn't as important as it used to be, but let's not pretend- those in rural areas where universal service is the least profitable, are also those least likely to have access to the internet for e-mail etc.

You see this effect in the UK with Royal Mail, the Conservatives decided to float it on the stock exchange (astonishingly mispriced netting their donors a nice sum - it peaked up 58% on it's IPO price in 6 months). The Royal Mail was already profit making when it was floated. Since then did they get much more efficent? No. Did they start using those profits to lobby for removing the universal service obligation? Yes!

[GhettoComputers]

That sounds great actually, they deliver mostly spam and already don’t serve all rural areas. Most banks have paperless options as well. It isn’t efficient and there is no way to opt out of spam, the loss of the public harm and needlessly cutting down trees sounds great!

[w0de0]

The internet also delivers mostly spam, and is still a public good.

The USPS needs reform, sure. But a public postal service which will deliver mail to everywhere, even at a loss, is fundamental to civilized society. Prior to the internet, this public good was more obvious. It's still needed.

Amazon delivers efficiently to 95% of addresses, so long as there's a profit to be had, and this is good for buyers. The USPS delivers to 100%, regardless of profit, and this is good for citizens and businesses - bills, legal documents, ballots and governments' communications are receivable at nearly every address in every state, thanks to the USPS. That's a tremendous public good.

If there were possible to talk about the American postal service non-ideologically, it would be a cinch to regulate away most junk mail, I imagine. Political oversight has in recent decades demanded the USPS be profitable, which misses its point.

[GhettoComputers]

> The USPS delivers to 100%, regardless of profit.

False. Did you see the part I said it already don’t serve all areas?

> The internet also delivers mostly spam, and is still a public good.

Compared to what and by what metric? You can’t opt out of physical spam, would you call it a public good (what does that mean?) if you couldn’t stop spam?

> If there were possible to talk about the American postal service non-ideologically, it would be a cinch to regulate away most junk mail, I imagine.

So you’re advocating for privatizing them?

> Political oversight has in recent decades demanded the USPS be profitable, which misses its point.

What is the point? It’s been talked about as a terrible monopoly for decades. It wasn’t profitable before they asked it to stop squandering money.