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Comment by xvector | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that there is no incentive for a government service to perform as its existence is not at risk.

There is no competition to the DMV, so there is no incentive to run it well.

The USPS will always exist due to being a federally funded service, so there isn't a massive incentive to compete with FedEx, UPS, etc.

Since these organizations do not live in competitive environments there is no drive for them to ever improve.

They cannot be improved with elections because the political state of America is so polarized that it is broken. Elections are decided on one thing alone - whether you run as red or blue. Platform objectives (eg "fix the DMV") are irrelevant because they no longer sway voters. All that matters in an election at this point is whether you are Republican or Democrat.

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> The USPS will always exist due to being a federally funded service, so there isn't a massive incentive to compete with FedEx, UPS, etc.

USPS is not federally funded. The federal government mandates the USPS to serve every single address in the US, even if it causes them to lose money, but does not give USPS any money. So they have to subsidize that with their other pricing, but FedEx/UPS do not.

It's "not" funded but gets politically motivated emergency loans and sometimes one-off funds from the Treasury, or it couldn't run a deficit. It's probably quite corrupt in how it spends money.

Interesting, I had not heard of these. Seems like it passed in the house in Feb 2022?

The USPS may not technically get congressionally allocated tax dollars each year, but they do have

1. A federally protected monopoly on the delivery of all mail smaller than a manila envelope or parcel. This is why FedEx can't mail a letter for you.

2. A federally protected monopoly on the use of mailboxes. This is why Amazon must park their truck, get out, and walk up to your front door to leave a tiny box.

3. An exemption from property taxes on all post office locations. Competitors must pay tax on their offices, distribution centers, and retail locations.

4. Interest free zero covenant loans from the federal government that only must be repaid in theory.

Good points I had not thought of!

I agree with your sentiment with the DMV, but I would remove USPS from your example.

That specifically is not federally funded, does have alternatives (FedEx, UPS), is under both economic & political pressure to compete, AND outcompetes the private alternatives by serving all addresses in the continental US. In fact, FedEx and UPS often add USPS to their routes for last-mile deliveries when it is economically advantageous - so it is those private carriers who are being subsidized by USPS

The other side of that coin is that they are not driven by profit motive, so the cost of improvement is not passed on to the users as "what the market will bear", but instead "at cost" so improvements are much more likely to be worth it for users of the service instead of just a new and exciting way to justify price increases.

As for "no reason to improve" well, there's no reason for people to do more than the very bare minimum, and yet they do it all the time. Sometimes organizations improve because they want to. I might even argue that it's harder to improve under existential crisis, not easier.

I think it's become a bit of truism that private businesses are more efficient than government run organizations. I wonder if that holds up under scrutiny?

> Sometimes organizations improve because they want to

or that there's an alternative reason for their action other than maximal profit.

There's darwinian natural selection at work in the private sector (where reproduction can be taken to mean profit). Such a force doesn't exist in gov't funded entities providing a service. That doesn't mean there's no force to make those services improve - it's just not the darwinian natural selection force (may be a politician decides to make it his/her objective to improve XYZ as a promise for votes).

I generally agree but also the local residents (who do vote in local elections) don't want permitting to be speedy. In fact they want it to be slow because there is a lot of NIMBYism and protectionism around property values. So in this case I think it actually is what voters want.

The CA DMV is way better now than it was a few years ago (it was horrible). Nearby, there's a massive driver license / renewal center and you can do more online than before. And some positive stories here: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/16/grieving-parents-get-...

It also doesn't make sense that you need competitive elections to fix something like the DMV. There are humans in the seats of government and why wouldn't they want to do a good job?

Because they're not graded? No KPI tracking.

Why wouldn't they have KPI's? It doesn't make sense that government has to equal incompetent: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/about-the-california-departmen...

The military is a government agency and while not perfect in a lot of ways, they aren't incompetent.

The military is very incompetent. It has bases that it neither needs or wants and are just make work projects. But this is the fault of the civilian government.

A lot of government workers want to do a good job. I think in a lot of cases it's intentional underfunding that's causing problems.

I'm not convinced it is under funding. It could also be too many managers and not enough front line staff. Or it could be too many regulations making the process need far more time (time=money).

I don't know, but I lean to too much process.

I watched pretty closely while I was changing from a KY vehicle registration to a CA registration. The staffer was plenty quick, there was just an absolute heap of stuff to do that all seemed pointless. I'm sure each of those little legally-mandated whatsits was well-intentioned, but in aggregate they bedraggle getting anything done. Similar story in zoning / planning. And in both arenas the result is that doing things is slow and expensive. Please, government, spend some tiny modicum of effort on deregulating and streamlining for the sake of not wasting my limited lifespan.

California DMV is so efficient, I’ve never seen a government agency be so fast during Covid.

> There are humans in the seats of government and why wouldn't they want to do a good job?

I can’t tell if this is a joke.

"There is no competition to the DMV, so there is no incentive to run it well."

I have been to the DMV in Ca, NV and NM in the last few years. All of them had appointment systems. In all three states I got there at the appointment time and had my car registered and a new license in between 30 and 60 minutes. I would rate the service better than at most private companies, competition or not.

Sure, once you get an appointment. Last time I tried they were booked a month out. Then when I got there I forgot one piece of paper and another month before I could get the next appointment.

Before appointments I just walked in, and worst case was only an hour wait.

Post-pandemic CA DMV has moved a lot more online, including things like title transfer which used to be in-person only. So you mostly don't need to go to the DMV anymore.

And if you do, since most people aren't going, it is now quick. A handful of years ago I remember appointments were a couple months out. Last month I needed an appointment and got one for the next day (and it wasn't a one-off, there were times available every day of that week) and I barely waited 5 minutes when I got there.

It's deeper than that, since you also have the "competitive" telcos.

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