[idoubtit]

My father once received a letter from Algeria, with 3 words on the envelope : his first name, "Créteil" (the town where he lived, ≈100k inhabitants), and "France". Of course, in the 70s there was no Internet nor central database to find him, yet the postal service managed to deliver the letter. He was a very active social worker, managed a youth football team, etc. which made him locally well-known by his first name.

Nowadays, many people can't find anyone or any place unless their phone helps them. And postmen never stop to chat. Such a letter would not pass through the technology process, and probably not through the human network.

[girvo]

> And postmen never stop to chat

I can say that at least where I live (Brisbane Australia's inner-ring suburbs) that's still the case: my postie is super friendly, loves my dog, and always has a couple of minutes to say hi!

And its great, because I live at a house number that is <number>A, and there is a <number>... but no <number>B or anything, which trips up a surprising amount of people/delivery drivers, so having a postie who cares helps

[mercer]

sadly, over here in the netherlands and I assume elsewhere, the job as a postman changed drastically when they privatized. room for the human element has been all but squeezed out for profits long ago.

[TiredOfLife]

Since the 70s the world population has almost tripled.