Probably not.
U.S. Mail to Bush Alaska is heavily subsidized, through a program called "bypass mail".
In the past some people have seriously abused this program (e.g. mailing enough concrete blocks to construct an entire building).
>Sam Krogstad of Bush Consolidators, which specializes in sending construction materials via the mail, says the Postal Service’s losses are partly self-inflicted because the postal system pays 10 times as much to send the building materials by air freight as it charges Krogstad to mail them.
Making a profit is not the point. Ensuring that every citizen has access to the communication network as a right is why the USPS does this
The US constitution merely allows congress to establish post offices and post roads. In a wider interpretation, it gives congress the right to regulate the postal system. But that seems to be a right to do something, not an obligation.
And it certainly doesn't read as an obligation for the government to run a postal system themselves. They merely chose to do so.
Even applying the idea of profit and loss to the post office is using a paradigm against it that does not fit the reason for its creation
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Post
Postal systems were initially brought under government control as a cash cow.
> The Postal Clause was added to the Constitution to facilitate interstate communication as well as to create a source of revenue for the early United States.
I would need to be given some sort of argument that this was a cash cow and not a service that is absorbing a massive amount of risk by giving a static price in the face of a constantly changing business world.
Every company I’ve worked at has been massively adverse to any risk because that can scale to infinite. Offering a service for a static price sounds exactly like something that is ignoring the idea of profit and loss as a metric to compare itself to in exchange for making sure everyone has access to the service
> Offering a service for a static price sounds exactly like something that is ignoring the idea of profit and loss as a metric to compare itself to in exchange for making sure everyone has access to the service[.]
The Penny Post was a profit driven private enterprise. There might or might not have been a more profitable pricing strategy for them, I don't know. Neither me nor business people have perfect knowledge (and don't need it to make markets work).
Compare to how Coca Cola cost a Nickel for 70 years. See eg https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why-...
> Every company I’ve worked at has been massively adverse to any risk because that can scale to infinite.
Keep in mind that prices under a gold or silver standard were more stable in the long run than under modern-day 2% inflation targeting.
(The short run was not necessarily as stable as today.)
> I would need to be given some sort of argument that this was a cash cow [...]
How about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Penny_Post#Takeover_of_... ?
> [...] and not a service that is absorbing a massive amount of risk by giving a static price in the face of a constantly changing business world.
Huh? It's not like the penny post would have been subject to sudden denial of service attacks from the Internet..
They always had the option of raising prices or turning away customers, in case they had temporarily too much demand or their costs would rise.