[newishuser]

It seems nobody at esquire even bothered to read the wikipedia article on the USPS as they would have crossed the section titled Universal service obligation and monopoly status[1]. This brings me to 2 things; 1) Monopoly: The USPS has a legal monopoly on letter carrying. You're not legally allowed to compete with them and that, simply, is why mailing a letter through UPS is so expensive. 2) Universal Service: One problem with completely privatizing as that you would have to legally mandate private companies to deliver to everyone.

I think the USPS could be a profitable company, they've just royally screwed up customer service. Screwed it up so bad that most people actually resent it. Not only is going to the post office comparable to a bad visit to the dentist but just try to make sense of their services [2]. They're incomprehensible. If I just want to mail a letter with a tracking number I should be able to go to the post office and say, "I would like to mail this with a tracking number." Actually forget that, I should be able to go to a vending machine, put in $1 and have it print me a tracking number that I can slap on the envelope. Instead I have to wait 30 minutes in a slightly dilapidated room, with service change signs dated back to 2004 and ask for "First Class mail with tracking and delivery confirmation". Every time, I say "I just want a tracking number" and they have to ask me 10 questions. Just give me a damn tracking number and clean your office.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usps#Universal_service_obligat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usps#Service_level_choices

[rgbrenner]

Haven't been to the post office lately?

>I should be able to go to a vending machine ...

Yes, they have those. They are called "Automated Postal Center"(APC).

> "First Class mail with tracking and delivery confirmation" and they have to ask me 10 questions.

These two things never existed together. There was delivery confirmation, which is not tracking. USPS did not previously provide tracking on First class mail.

Over the past few years they have been improving their tracking of delivery conf #s, and today it's similar to UPS/FedEx tracking.. so recently they renamed it to "USPS Tracking" (in mid-Jan 2013).

[newishuser]

Exactly, I've been 15 times for this very reason and still can't figure it out.

[eurleif]

On the other hand, my address is weird. Because of historical reasons, the address is on 14th Ave., but the house isn't actually physically located on 14th Ave. Sometimes when I get an Amazon package, UPS or FedEx can't find where I live. Sometimes they even deliver to the same house number on 13th Ave. (I've never met whoever lives there, but I believe they've hand-delivered packages to me a few times. Thanks, stranger!)

However, USPS has never failed to deliver correctly. And I think there's something to be said for their reliability in general.

[mmanfrin]

  and that, simply, is why mailing a letter through UPS is so expensive.

What?

[newishuser]

No company is legally allowed to compete for business with the USPS. In order to deliver letters, other companies must by law be providing premium services that the USPS either doesn't provide or aren't it's core business. UPS must charge you significantly more to deliver your letter in order to stay out of the USPS' market.

[skore]

I'm confused as well. I thought the reason why mailing a letter through UPS is expensive is because using a system set up for delivery of packages to deliver a letter is a bit wasteful and thus they have to set higher costs to make any money on letters.

[streptomycin]

Wikipedia says:

"FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) directly compete with USPS express mail and package delivery services, making nationwide deliveries of urgent letters and packages. Due to the postal monopoly, they are not allowed to deliver non-urgent letters and may not directly ship to U.S. Mail boxes at residential and commercial destinations."

I don't know what specifically the definitions of urgent and non-urgent are, but you get the idea. UPS may not now be designed to deliver non-urgent letters efficiently, but that's largely because they aren't allowed to, so why would they bother?

[skore]

(Not strictly a reply to you, but following up since I found that interesting.)

The original quote was

> that, simply, is why mailing a letter through UPS is so expensive.

So the actual reason is: Mailing a letter through UPS does not exist. Mailing an express letter does exist and it is more expensive.

And I think they wouldn't bother either way, simply because it's not economical for them. Once again a reason why having it as a quasi-government service makes sense.

[streptomycin]

And I think they wouldn't bother either way, simply because it's not economical for them. Once again a reason why having it as a quasi-government service makes sense.

If nobody was in that market at all and there was no legal barrier to entering the market, it would be economical for somebody to offer the service, be that UPS or some other company.

[skore]

True, but it would still be debatable to what extend the service would be as useful as the USPS if it was "economical". Today, though, it is more likely to be somewhat decent, so that is debatable as well, but not so when the postal system was first put in place.

And by the way: My perspective is that of living in Germany and having actually worked for two years as a postman for Deutsche Post after it was privatized and the monopoly was abandoned. I think it is highly debatable whether we're better off with the "free market" (also a debatable term in this case) solution right now. I was employed as a help because they needed more capacity to deliver advertising, which is - by volume - what they mostly deliver these days.

[RougeFemme]

Not economical to the customer. . .I don't think private companies would necessarily find it economical to deliver letters to very sparsely populated rural areas - at least not using current technology. And I don't think it would be worth it to them to invest in researching more advanced technology that would make it more economical to the company. The potential customer base would be too small to yield a decent of rate of return on the investment, let alone the expected actual customer base. Look at other areas where nobody is in the market and there are no legal barriers to entering the market and there are still geographic regions without service providers. . .mass transit, retail. . .