I mean, for what it's worth, this gets high marks from me for ease of use and seems to be consistent with just about every advice you see surface here about getting your users through an ordering funnel. Of course the fact that the cost is 0 here makes it a simpler problem for them, but given that it is a gov't project I could have envisioned a lot, lot worse.
The USPS also enjoys a monopoly on mailbox deliveries, as well as price protections, in the form of a floor imposed on potential competitors. This doesn't seem particularly admirable.
Because other companies can simply cut the benefits, USPS cannot.
The best explainer I've seen is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...
> ALL companies are required to fund any pension promises they make to their employees. (...) NONE of them are permitted to take a “pay as you go” approach but must contribute to a pension fund an amount equivalent to what a worker has accrued that year in benefit promises, regardless of how far into the future that worker will be retiring, and must make up for any shortfalls due to asset losses or other reasons. The USPS and private sector companies use the same general actuarial principles to do so, though there are differences in assumptions, particulars of the calculations, etc.
> What is distinctive about the USPS is that, a a result of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), they are also required to pre-fund their retiree medical promises. However, what is also distinctive is that any private-sector company may simply cancel its retiree medical benefits at any time; the funding requirement for the USPS exists because only an act of Congress would enable them to cut these benefits.
> However, even here, again, all companies which promise retiree medical benefits must account for them in their financial reporting even if they don’t prefund.
As well as this line when discussing the USPS Fairness Act, which would eliminate the pre-funding requirement.
https://about.usps.com/news/delivers-facts/usps-delivers-the... [PDF Warning]
> passage of the bill will not reduce our underlying retiree health benefits liability, nor improve our cash flow or long-term financial position.
It’s a vital service like mass transit or roads.
And that's not even touching on the point that looking at the postal service as a private business is completely asinine. No one looks at the military or schools as a private business that needs to make a profit.
Anecdotally, I would be among the first in line to dump them, just as I would choose to dump every government monopoly if I had such a choice (e.g. fire, police, etc.). You know, the way things were back when citizens had a modicum of actual freedom, rather than the constant gaslighting that attempts to redefine our modern cultural slavery as "freedom".
Everything the government touches turns to the worst possible kind of shit.
Not really. Vaccines were deployed via centralized health centers.
> pressing private companies into service
I am talking about a distribution network. Lets go back to that time in March 2020 when the US started realizing COVID was a real thing and everyone went into lockdown. Imagine the next time, where we are able to mass manufacture a vaccine pill within the matter 1-2 weeks. Having the USPS distribution system could be invaluable here. We certainly wouldn't be in our third year of COVID-related disruptions as we are now.
Okay, this is not particularly novel, and the implied comparison to scaling digital services is flawed.
"If this were a startup or private company we would be in awe of their track record."
Again, if a startup operated like USPS they would fold real quick. The USPS has continuously received public money to remain in operation. They are not innovative. The only area where they are expanding is in parcel delivery, and they often turn it over to other partners to do the last-mile pickup and delivery.
However, startups can aspire to the ubiquity of USPS. In many towns, the Post Office is the only happening place and fosters community, and occupies an important place in the hearts of people who rely on it in a big way. Many private logistics providers such as UPS and FedEx do not serve these areas because it's uneconomical for them, and the Post Office is the only logistics provider. For this reason, the USPS deserves taxpayer support.
I really, really don't want to see the post office innovate on the timescales of startups. IMO "more reliable" > "more features" for this kind of work. I don't want someone thinking of how to put (more) ads on my mail, I just want my mail.
USPS does have ways to validate your address, for example when you set up mail forwarding or the daily digest thing.
https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-informa...
USPS gets points for practicality and execution, but is yet another service that performs zero email address verification and ends up with idiots that don't know their own email sending me their info.
It's a little problematic if, say, four roommates share an address.
The 18F group is the US Government's "elite" IT-team, including web programming.
-------
If it wasn't 18F, who did it?