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Comment by _emacsomancer_ | Hacker News Reader

All of the other major delivery services in the US (UPS, FedEx, DHL, Ontrac) are horrible and far worse than the USPS. And without the USPS to compete against, they'd be even worse.

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To say nothing of the fact that other delivery services frequently rely upon USPS for last-mile delivery in more rural (read: less- or un-profitable) areas, and those areas would simply not be served by a privatized postal service.

Yes, without the USPS lots of people would have to drive into the nearest town to get anything, and presumably letters would become completely cost-prohibitive to send even to people in cities.

But even setting these things aside, USPS is almost always a better experience as either sender or receiver than any of the other competitors in the US.

FedEx "SmartPost" and UPS "SurePost" are both basically "drop your package off with FedEx/UPS, and they'll put it in the regular mail for you".

And the bigger deal (to me) is that none of the competitors are really competitors in the key area of the USPS--first class mail delivery. Can UPS, FedEX deliver a letter (or a bill, or check, or...) for $0.55?

Given that they're forbidden by law from doing so (without first paying the postage to the USPS), no.

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

Do you honestly think any private company would offer services like that to EVERY US address for $0.55/per?

If I understand that correctly, one of the private carriers should be offering to deliver letters at ~$1.10 per ($0.55 to USPS plus $0.55 internal cost). The closest I've seen is closer to $10.

The USPS tithe isn't the bottleneck, but it would definitely make sense to unwind once a private carrier could break the $2/letter barrier.

Anecdotally, I lived in one place where I never got a _single_ FedEx package correctly delivered of the dozens that were sent to me.

This was a normal apartment, in a normal apartment building, in a fairly nice part of town. The only way I ever got a Fedex package (several were sent back as "undeliverable") was if I knew it was coming in advance, to go online with the tracking # and instruct them to hold the delivery for me at the local Fedex office. Then I could pick it up in person.

Fortunately, the local Fedex office was only 2 blocks away from my apartment on the same street.

USPS delivered 100% of my letters and packages on time.

Worse in what way? I've always had better experiences with every one of their competitors.

UPS, FedEx, DHL etc., when they aren't just completely scummy (lying about delivering something when they haven't; lying about delivery charges), take far longer to deliver packages and often leave them in completely arbitrary places - in the middle of the driveway, for instance.

Essentially none of the major commercial delivery services in the US seem to know anything about actually delivering packages.

USPS has locked mailboxes at the curb (in cities). In apartment buildings, the boxes may even be inside the building. The other deliverers don't do that. I've never had a USPS package stolen, because they either deliver it to the lockbox or to you.

UPS/Fedex/FBA/DHL just drop it in front of my house and don't even bother ringing the doorbell. It rains here a good amount and if you don't notice your ghost package fast, maybe it gets soaked through.

Fedex has lied to me multiple times about attempting delivery on days they never did.

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