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Comment by snarfy | Hacker News Reader

It's a government service, not a business. It's not supposed to be profitable. It's supposed to provide a service.

That sounds like a excuse to wave off government accountability.

Further, it's one of the only (if not the only) federal agency explicitly required by the US Constitution.

(US Constitution Article 1 Section 8 Clause 7) > The Congress shall have Power... To establish Post Offices and post Roads.

I Am Not A Constitutional Scholar, but I don't read that as the Constitution explicitly requiring the Post Office, but merely delegating the power to do so to Congress. Presumably Congress would still be within its rights to not exercise that power, or to abolish the Post Office entirely.

As a voter and taxpayer, then I demand an end to this service. The last time I received an actual piece of valid mail was probably years ago. The USPS has become an ad-delivery network subsidized by my tax dollars. Perhaps charging bulk-mailers full price could end the problem of junk mail or create financial solvency. Why should junk mail literally nobody wants be subsidized? For official notices, the government could contract with a commercial carrier for far less than paying billions to operate a fleet of trucks that mostly carry junk.

They don’t get any of your tax money.

Who is "they" here? USPS? Commercial carriers? Junk mailers?

USPS. I’m responding to “The USPS has become an ad-delivery network subsidized by my tax dollars.”

I should mention that USPS does get tax money when other agencies use their services, but they’re paying for it just like anyone else does. It’s not subsidized, other than indirectly by their monopoly on letters.

>The last time I received an actual piece of valid mail was probably years ago. The USPS has become an ad-delivery network subsidized by my tax dollars.

The Post Office's job is to deliver mail sent to you, not to presort it by "validity" on your behalf and then only deliver the mail they think you'll want... if advertisers are sending you junk mail and it's getting to you then the Post Office is doing its job.

>Why should junk mail literally nobody wants be subsidized?

Again, it's not the fault of the Post Office that junk mail is a business, or that no one wants to send you anything but that. As far as it's concerned, mail is mail, and the junk treated like any other correspondence. Junk mail isn't subsidized, "mail" is subsidized - that so much of that mail is junk is not the fault of the USPS.

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