At least they can read QR codes.
In germany, they're switching to parcel lockers without display and camera, only bluetooth. So you're forced to install an app on your phone to get or send a parcel, that comes with several evil trackers that send your position to whomever.
Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
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Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#32At least they can read QR codes. In germany, they're switching to parcel lockers without display and camera, only bluetooth. So you're forced to install an app on your phone to get or send a parcel, that comes with several evil trackers that send your position to whomever.
Here in Belgium too. Somehow they don’t properly work if you have other Bluetooth devices connected, so the app forces you to disconnect other devices. Then it needs access to precise geolocation, and not just because Bluetooth requires it - I have to turn on location services.
In the old system, I could just punch in the code or scan the QR code, but now I have to do this dance of “why won’t it connect?” every time
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the UK in a nutshell this past decade. Privatise all of the public services for a quick buck, and slowly but surely the service decays whilst the prices for consumers increases. The trains in the UK are a great example of this.
It does seem to be the inevitable consequence, but often privatisation is required too. Publicly run services and utilities often suffer from inefficiencies because there's no incentive to change the processes and lots of government funded agencies suffer from the "we must spend our entire budget or we'll get less next year" syndrome. Privatisation replaces the leadership with people who are incentivised to make the…
This logic breaks apart in high positive externality areas, like public transport (or indeed postal systems).
Public transport brings a lot of value to other businesses and communities it operates in that can't be directly captured in fares. Which means that if a public transport system is profitable and the goal is maximising total economic (and social) value of the area as a whole, the system either under-invests, or is too expensive, or both.
The classic economic solution to this is subsidies: capture some of the generated value in taxes, re-invest back into the transport system. However, this makes the business part of the whole arrangement almost meaningless, because the amount of optimal subsidy can't be objectively determined. It's impossible to distinguish a bad business losing money from inefficiencies from a good business asking for subsidies to optimise its total impact.
There are some peculiar arrangements that some countries and systems were able to create, like direct land value capture through transport companies buying and selling property. But those cases are pretty exceptional and for practical purposes don't scale.
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the UK in a nutshell this past decade. Privatise all of the public services for a quick buck, and slowly but surely the service decays whilst the prices for consumers increases. The trains in the UK are a great example of this.
It does seem to be the inevitable consequence, but often privatisation is required too. Publicly run services and utilities often suffer from inefficiencies because there's no incentive to change the processes and lots of government funded agencies suffer from the "we must spend our entire budget or we'll get less next year" syndrome. Privatisation replaces the leadership with people who are incentivised to make the…
> but often privatisation is required too.
Based on what exactly? That privatisation is required is something you hear quite often, but rarely a solid explanation. Often times, the organization or service operating at a loss is cited. But this is barely a good KPI to look at when it comes to public services. Even if a public service operates at a loss on a business level, it can still mean the very same service is „profitable“ in a macro economic scope.
> Publicly run services and utilities often suffer from inefficiencies because there's no incentive to change the processes and lots of government funded agencies suffer from the "we must spend our entire budget or we'll get less next year" syndrome.
This is not inherent to government services, it is a leadership issue. One - as I may add - is frequently encountered in many large entirely private organizations as well. As such, it barely serves as a good argument in favor of privatisation. Private companies are not incentivized to be efficient, they are incentivized to make money. Money can be made by being efficient. But the ultimate way to be „efficient“ and make loads of money is by being a monopoly - something that you‘re often supporting by making formerly public services private.
Beyond that, what counts as inefficient? A public service can and should have different bars as a private org. For a private company, anything where the process cost is higher than the expected return is inefficient.
Take a postal service as an example. Running a postal office in a small town with few people and little postal traffic is almost certainly inefficient. But is this a good enough reason to cut people off such a critical service?
> Privatisation replaces the leadership with people who are incentivised to make the organisation as efficient as possible
That is what the theory states. In the real world, efficiency gains almost always come down to cost cutting in terms of reducing the service quality, reducing the service availability or a combination of each. In my opinion, to talk about efficiency gains, you need to provide the same service for less - this is rarely happening.
> Probably the sensible middle ground is for the government to maintain a sizeable but minority share in everything that gets privatised, with a general policy of never exercising the voting rights unless it's against a course of action that is clearly detrimental to public interest
This just seems like an elaborate way to privatize without actually privatizing. Again, I am generally strongly against privatization, particularly when it comes to natural monopolies such as infrastructure.
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the UK in a nutshell this past decade. Privatise all of the public services for a quick buck, and slowly but surely the service decays whilst the prices for consumers increases. The trains in the UK are a great example of this.
There's no iron law stating that private services must necessarily decay or be under provisioned.
The iron law of capitalism--maximize investor return, minimize expense, even at the expense of the core product. This is especially true when there is not adequate competition, which is the case in a lot of sectors in this country.
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no iron law stating that private services must necessarily decay or be under provisioned.
Besides, government-run British Rail was historically shit, reaching peak shitness in 1984 when they brought out the pleading slogan "We're Getting There".
The Stockholm subway and basically all of Japanese rail are privately run.
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#37Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no iron law stating that private services must necessarily decay or be under provisioned.
The iron law of capitalism--maximize investor return, minimize expense, even at the expense of the core product. This is especially true when there is not adequate competition, which is the case in a lot of sectors in this country.
Destroying your core offering isn’t a core feature of capitalism.
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#39Is the added cost of these worth it?
Does the QR code of a parcel need to be read as it is put into the postbox? Isn't it sufficient to just read it a few hours later when it gets to the sorting office?
Re: Solar-powered QR reading postboxes being rolled out across UK
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no iron law stating that private services must necessarily decay or be under provisioned.
Besides, government-run British Rail was historically shit, reaching peak shitness in 1984 when they brought out the pleading slogan "We're Getting There".
This is news to me. When did they fall far behind other western countries?