Just delete every law on the books that distinguishes it in any way from UPS or FedEx and let it live or die on its own merits.
Lets also not forget that UPS and FexEx often use USPS for the last mile of their shipments. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fed...
It is totally obsolete for this purpose, having been almost totally supplanted by phone calls, email, text messages, IM, and video calls.
Still seems relevant.
And it's not like mail would be unavailable. If it cost $2 for rural customers to mail a letter instead of $.50, would it really matter for the two letters that still get mailed a year?
Many people rely on physical mail for things like social security checks, taxes, bills, communication with family and friends.
Remember, broadband never actually got rolled out everywhere like phones did(hint: one was considered a vital utility)
All of those things can be done on the internet and don't require broadband.
Also, how many times a year do you have to file your taxes, if you really want to do it that way?
Have you actually used dial up? It's terrible slow compared to broadband but a whole lot faster than mailing a letter.
And nobody pays by the minute anymore.
An up to date windows 10 laptop? A MacBook? You are making a lot of assumptions about a lot of people.
Even on a completely updated, modern machine try throttling your bandwidth to 56k and paying your bills via your banks website.
Dial up is slow. But if that's the problem you want to solve then how do you do it by subsidizing the postal service?
I don’t know myself, but it seems within reason to me.
I feel like the most likely scenario right now is it will take on a limited form of its current self, maybe delivery once per week? Much higher postage?
A somewhat higher postage rate would not affect this that much, and no, there are not that many people always sending letters, and broadband isn't required to pay bills.
The vast, vast majority of mail (even bills sent etc.) is completely wasted, it would be incredibly more efficient to dump it in lieu of sending 'only the mail that is needed'.
Sounds like we could go to weekly or even bimontly delivery for all of these.
> communication with family and friends
My grandmother had a telephone growing up deep in rural Kentucky 80 years ago. It's 2020. Get with the times.
You know what? The best solution is lifting taxes (most of them don't pay much anyway) and usual phone bills (that are freaking expensive for the service it provides). it will probably cost less than to pay for the last mile.
it’s a lot cheaper and more efficient than this
you either support some things being nationalized for the greater benefit of society, or you take the neoliberal approach and say “there is no society, may the best corporation win”.
I have no doubt that privatizing all mail can generate better margins and return some nice profits to a handful of individuals at the expense of less citizens having access to the service.
Another approach could be to just give rural Americans more cash, and let them pick the winners, as consumers.
This would also provide an opportunity to fix it the other way -- instead of requiring the USPS to do it, allow any certified letter carrier to do it even if it's UPS or FedEx.