[Grombobulous]

Refusing service entirely kinda feels like more like something that fits the word “discrimination.” UPS/FedEx can refuse service to you for almost any reason.

But, perhaps you’re right, maybe the word “discrimination” is the wrong word. Either way, from a national policy standpoint there are very good reasons to subsidize rural areas for basic infrastructure services like mail and internet.

USPS from an operations standpoint is pretty much profitable. Congress basically doesn’t even allow USPS to fix itself when it absolutely can fix itself without major service cuts or privatization. For example, their pension fund can only invest in low-yield securities, while normal companies have more flexibility, so that inflates the cost of their retirement program.

[eru]

You can auction off the universal service obligation to willing bidders without having a state owned enterprise with a government monopoly.

> Either way, from a national policy standpoint there are very good reasons to subsidize rural areas for basic infrastructure services like mail and internet.

Please tell me a few.

[Grombobulous]

Sure!

Rural areas extract and produce many resources that urban areas depend on. Agriculture, fishing, oil, gas, uranium, wood, maple syrup, etc.

You can’t get workforces to live in those places or businesses to operate there if there’s no roads, internet, mail, schools, hospitals, etc (or if those things are prohibitively expensive).

Don’t forget that subsidy doesn’t always mean the difference between whether it’s expensive or not, it can also mean the difference between having and not having.

Another reason is that too much regional wealth inequality can be bad for national stability. It can lead to things like civil wars and unrest.

[eru]

Thanks for your list.

> Rural areas extract and produce many resources that urban areas depend on. Agriculture, fishing, oil, gas, uranium, wood, maple syrup, etc.

Sure, and market prices reward them for that in relation to how useful that is. No reason for a subsidy.

> You can’t get workforces to live in those places or businesses to operate there if there’s no roads, internet, mail, schools, hospitals, etc (or if those things are prohibitively expensive).

Why do we want to workforces to live in rural areas? In any case, land prices will drop to establish equilibrium.

That sucks for land owners, but the workforce doesn't care whether they get their benefits in forms of lower rent or explicit subsidies.

> Don’t forget that subsidy doesn’t always mean the difference between whether it’s expensive or not, it can also mean the difference between having and not having.

Singapore has plenty of rural areas lining up to export to her, without paying any subsidies (above market prices) to them.

> Another reason is that too much regional wealth inequality can be bad for national stability. It can lead to things like civil wars and unrest.

That's a good argument for breaking up nations into smaller units, sure.

[8note]

agriculture is the ultrawealthy though? i dont need to subsidize the very-rich

fishing isndone off the coast, and the fishing boats can land in town or in a city for processing. the ships leave seattle, then go out to alaska to catch fish, thrn come back to seattle with frozen fish

oil, gas, uranium, etc make money hand over fist and can bring people in and out of the mines on a 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off schedule. they dont need a rural village beside

i think the real reason is that local rich people in rural areas are far too powerful, and federal resources ensure that the people that live in rural areas are too wildly oppressed by the local nobility. we hope that one day the nobles will be overthrown and there will be more proper righta and freedoms out in the middle of nowhere