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Comment by AHMagic | Hacker News Reader

Your point is valid, but we still live in a world where we can call Verizon phones with AT&T phones; send e-mails to Gmail users with Yahoo; and send mail with UPS instead of USPS. With those means of communication, we still have control over our providers.

There is no control within Facebook's ecosystem. Similar with AOL, if you don't use Facebook, you're necessarily out of the loop, and I don't feel comfortable with that.

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> and send mail with UPS instead of USPS

Not to detract from your point, just thought you might be interested to know that USPS actually has a legally-protected partial monopoly on the right to carry letters (18 U.S. Code § 1696).

An exemption was added in 1979 allowing private carriers to deliver "extremely urgent" mail. This is why UPS and FedEx express mail envelopes bear that text on their front.

Apart from this exemption, USPS, FedEx and the like are only allowed to deliver 'parcels', not 'letters', though I'm not sure where the distinction is legally defined.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

Interesting, thanks.

I don't think decentralization just means > 1. That you can use 4 services is not very decentralized.

While true, I think it is important to emphasize the difference between 4 platforms and 4 carriers. With both postal mail and email, its not just that there are alternative systems, but rather that you as the sender can choose any of the offerings to reach anyone, even if they use a different carrier for their own needs, so there is a lot more competitive pressure on those 4 carriers than with 4 platforms where network effects keep people locked in.

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