Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service 398
An anonymous reader writes "Some of the folks responsible for developing and promoting e-mail, e-commerce and social media are banding together in an attempt to save the US Postal Service, the institution arguably most threatened by the technological developments of the past few years. As mail volume continues to plummet and more Americans use the Internet to pay bills and keep in touch, Google executives, social media experts and some of the most passionate tech evangelists are planning to meet in Crystal City in mid-June to sort out how to save and remake the nation's mail delivery service. The conference, PostalVision 2020, is designed to bring together the people who understand what this technology has done, is doing and will do to digital commerce and communication in America. USPS anticipates losing about $7 billion during the fiscal year that ends in September and is in the process of eliminating 7,500 postmaster and administrative positions to save money."
Why not Railroads? (Score:4, Interesting)
>> arguably most threatened by the technological developments of the past few years
I disagree! They are most threatened by gas prices! US Postal was originally transported on trains and hand sorted while the train was going to its' destination. Hand sorting on a train meant that everything was ready to be delivered on arrival rather than sorting at the destination postal facility. Airlines under bid railroads to get mail service but now they are having trouble competing. I see no reason why we shouldn't support our railroads and go back to delivering mail from the rails.
Eggheads vs. entrenched bureacracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a suggestion for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's my suggestion to make the post office more useful. Let everyone register a postal address that is dissociated from a physical address. Then when I move, instead of filing a change of address form and hoping that everyone who wants to send mail to me ever again sends it in the next year, I can just tell the post office "Yeah, that postal address should now be delivered to this *new* physical address"
The biggest problem is the fundamental issue that individual residents make the flawed assumption that they are the post office's customers, when in fact they are the post office's product. They are a product being sold, and if you want to know who's buying you, just look at the ton of spam in your mailbox. Any demands for better service aren't heard as dissatisfied customers, but as disgruntled products.
Re:USPS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing you don't live in a rural community.
"Big government" aka the local post office in my central Virginia hamlet consists of a 400 square foot post office built by sectioning off the local country store. Along with the country store, it's the primary place to go to learn or pass along news, or to meet your neighbors. Of course it's kind of insane from a purely economic standpoint to maintain it, with a full-time postmistress, when there is a medium-sized PO five miles away in the next big town and a full-service PO a dozen miles away. But when that branch closes, and I suppose it will, it will mean one less point of human contact for folks around here, and some not insignificant additional burdens for people without a lot of money or with health problems for whom a trip to retrieve a package at a distance is not trivial.
HAHAHA (Score:4, Interesting)
I just went to report this incident since it occurred to me they probably have a form to do so...
Thanks for your email.
A US Postal Services® representative will reply to your email within 2 to 3 business days.
The case number for request is: Problem processing ticket service request
Stay classy, USPS. They don't even listen to their own automated systems, they're not going to listen to a bunch of eggheads.
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the objective is efficiency, you might as well tell any rural areas that aren't totally loaded to shove off and learn to enjoy natural solitude, and let any impecunious urban areas enjoy the newfound feeling of community that comes with being cut off.
I'm not sure that that would be such a popular move; but it definitely would decrease the per-capital cost of infrastructure.
Keeping the USPS solvent would be easy: (Score:4, Interesting)
I would gladly -- nay, eagerly -- pay a small monthly fee to the USPS in exchange for the mail carrier performing one simple service: spam filtering.
Take all the flyers, coupons, and other advertisements, along with all the mail not addressed to me (I very frequently get mail not only for the previous residents who sold us the home 2+ years ago, but for the residents prior to them, and the residents prior to those residents going back at least a decade), and deliver those items straight to the trash.
Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Article 1, Section 8 says the US Gov has the power to establish Post Offices and Post Roads. It doesn't say anything about requiring it to do so.
Re:The problem with USPS is ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now postal on the other hand, will drop the key to the large mailbox in my box and I get my package without needing to take time off work. Or if it requires a signature, the post office is only 4 blocks away and it is open quite late so I can pick up my package the following day.
Canadian post office, so your mileage may vary.
USPS, why not simply give up the Saturday delivery?
Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)
But they're NOT really losing $7 billion a year.
What's actually happening is that a few years back, Congress started making the Postal Service not only make massive pre-payments to their workers' retirement funds, but the Postal Service also was forced to make contributions to the retirement funds of workers who used to be in the military, for the time they were in the military. This shifted a large amount of costs from the military budget, to the Postal Service budget. Gee, I wonder why they did that?
If the Postal Service had to fund its workers retirement funds the same way the other government agencies do, and only had to contribute to the funds for the former military workers the portions that they worked for the Postal Service itself, they'd be in the black.
It ain't the Postal Service that's broken. It's Congress. Want to fix the Postal Service? Either put it completely back under the government as just another agency, or free them from Congress writing their rules.
Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Nobody can even try to compete with a government-mandated monopoly that loses money. The way to 'save' it is probably to destroy it. I guarantee people will still need to send letters, and people will still pay for the service, and someone will step up and handle the issue.
I don't think we even need to be that drastic, though. Just repeal the law and force USPS to make a profit and the market will take over.
Re:It's dying? (Score:4, Interesting)
Goody! More anecdotes!
A couple months back I sold some items to two separate people who knew each other (common message board). While these items were in route these gentlemen each informed me that they had no intention of paying me and that they were going to duplicate my items. They had a good laugh at duping me. I went to the local USPS branch, filled out one form for each package, and had them each intercepted prior to delivery and promptly returned to me. And for good measure I shared the correspondence on the board in questions, used their real names, sat back and enjoyed the show.
Yes, the USPS is clearly incompetent.