Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
washingtonpost.com
Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
1–10 of 51 posts
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#2What is going to happen to the Postal Service? In 10-15 years, dead tree mail will be an anachronism. Mass mail campaigns will be much less effective because the current buying generation will have grown up ignoring letters. Will the post office be able to continue to function after losing 80% of it's current volume? Does this mean that we'll be trusting one or many startups to deliver important information from the government?
I also wonder how a world with a much smaller post office would look. I know there are already several startups operating in this space, but it seems like there will be a large opportunity in "replacing printed mail" in the near future.
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#3earthclassmail.com is what they should look at. Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery.
In other words, where electronic mail won't work, USPS could handle parts of the delivery that make sense and how its done shouldn't matter.
As far as delivery 6 days a week, I think most people could get by with delivery 2 or 3 times a week.
Delivery of commercial could be scheduled to arrive just before delivery days so they could avoid storing too much mail.
USPS or private equivalents could also accept and store electronic bills for you as a trusted third party so you can access them as long as needed. It could certify that bills have actually been paid.
There are a lot of things that could be done to leverage its "official" position. But to do so, it actually must become technically competent. At the moment, it cannot even put the mail into the right box consistently at my house.
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#4earthclassmail.com is what they should look at. Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery. In other words, where electronic mail won't work, USPS could handle parts of the delivery that make sense and how its done shouldn't matter. As far as delivery 6 days a week, I th…
> Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery.
How curious, I imagine this is how people described fax machines in the early 70's...
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#5I don’t understand why you can’t address physical mail to an identity and let the USPS automatically route it to a physical address. Especially during and after college, I moved so much, I’m sure mail got lost en route. It would also help with privacy. You could have “throwaway addresses” given to certain businesses, possibly, or instruct the USPS to block mail from .
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#6I don’t understand why you can’t address physical mail to an identity and let the USPS automatically route it to a physical address. Especially during and after college, I moved so much, I’m sure mail got lost en route. It would also help with privacy. You could have “throwaway addresses” given to certain businesses, possibly, or instruct the USPS to block mail from .
"I don’t understand why you can’t address physical mail to an identity an let the USPS automatically route it to a physical address."
USPS should have transitioned toward providing digital identity services for citizens and government at least five years ago. They were perfectly positioned to do this, and yet completely missed the opportunity.
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#7earthclassmail.com is what they should look at. Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery. In other words, where electronic mail won't work, USPS could handle parts of the delivery that make sense and how its done shouldn't matter. As far as delivery 6 days a week, I th…
> Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery. How curious, I imagine this is how people described fax machines in the early 70's...
not everyone had a fax machine in their house and pocket, though.
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#8earthclassmail.com is what they should look at. Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery. In other words, where electronic mail won't work, USPS could handle parts of the delivery that make sense and how its done shouldn't matter. As far as delivery 6 days a week, I th…
> The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery.
This makes as much sense as removing commercials from TV shows because people can now go to the network website and watch the commercials there. The problem isn't "how do we continue to provide junk mail cheaply?" it's "how do we continue to provide regular mail cheaply without being subsidized by junk mail?"
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Many things don't need to be delivered. The post office could actually let people see images of mass mailings before they are even printed or let people print them themselves with no delivery. How curious, I imagine this is how people described fax machines in the early 70's...
not everyone had a fax machine in their house and pocket, though.
Most people do not have a smart phone, nor are most people capable of paying all their bills online.
Re: Tech experts, including Google, to discuss future of the USPS
#10I don’t understand why you can’t address physical mail to an identity and let the USPS automatically route it to a physical address. Especially during and after college, I moved so much, I’m sure mail got lost en route. It would also help with privacy. You could have “throwaway addresses” given to certain businesses, possibly, or instruct the USPS to block mail from .
You could just use usps general delivery as a throwaway address, if necessary.