Postal mail has been on a slow downward spiral for some time, but it seems to me these new postal rates represent the acceleration of that process.
As email eats away at one end of the service and FedEx, UPS et al. chomp away at the other, the Postal Service’s business shrinks to the center — remnant bills that can’t be paid electronically, personal cards, and commercial messages (mostly unwanted credit card pitches that can become identity-theft bait and forest-devastating catalogs).
I suppose the new rules doubling the fees for bigger envelopes and so on represent the Post Office’s desperate effort to keep bringing revenue in on a dwindling base of use. But it’s a sure way to drive people away: Now there’s one less reason to hesitate about overnighting that full-size 8 1/2 x 11 envelope — who’ll want to scratch their heads and figure out how much to pay?
Too bad. As a teenaged publisher of mimeographed magazines in the 1970s, I was a bulk user of postal services, and there was something wonderful about how you could count on your six-sheets-stapled zine getting where it was going in the continental U.S. with a single stamp. Who knows how such publications would fit into this new postage world — but they’ve pretty much all gone Web anyway.
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While I won’t disagree with you about the decreased usage of the Postal Service for certain services, you should look who is standing in line every day at the Post Office. People who sell everything and anything on Ebay. Those people use it because it’s convenient, cost effective compared to the parcel carriers whose main conduit of business remains big online and catalog sellers and bulk business shippers. They have those small outlets and pickup locations, but everyone knows where a Post Office is.
Many have not noticed that phising and identity theft all but destroyed the email business for banks. By federal laws they must still place statements in the mail if you do not opt for online services. Many bank customers are so afraid of identity theft they stick with the statements and other financial information via traditional mail. Unfortunately the wrong mindset because receiving those items in the mail actually adds to identity theft, but reality nonetheless.
And why do the credit card companies still send millions of credit card offers through the mail? Because it works. Identity theft fodder once again, but the gains far outweigh the losses.
Are you kidding? ecommerce is driving up delivery volumes faster than any other single event.
Lol, my mailman/ups/fedex/doorman etc would beg to differ, at least for our household anyway.
Cheers,
Dean
http://www.collins.net.pr/blog