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United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

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Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#11

Post by timjahn »

firefoxman1 wrote: post #4
timjahn wrote: post #2

This is a perfect example of why the USPS is on its way out. People haven't forgotten about the USPS. They simply naturally no longer have a need for it. We often check our mail once a week! Why? Because we don't get anything useful in the mail. Just junk mail. Once a week, we think "Have we checked the mail this week? Hmm, better go check it." No amount of advertising by the USPS is going to save them. They're not g…

It shows how hostile a dying industry becomes. Looks to me like the RIAA and USPS are in similar situations by the way they're acting.

Very true, great point.

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#12

Post by roc »

timjahn wrote: post #2

This is a perfect example of why the USPS is on its way out. People haven't forgotten about the USPS. They simply naturally no longer have a need for it. We often check our mail once a week! Why? Because we don't get anything useful in the mail. Just junk mail. Once a week, we think "Have we checked the mail this week? Hmm, better go check it." No amount of advertising by the USPS is going to save them. They're not g…

To be fair: the USPS is being rushed out the door via a legislative hit job. They've been required to accumulate a reserve of 75 years-worth of worker benefits (retirement and healthcare) -- something I don't believe any other company or government service has to do -- and build up that reserve in 10 years, on their existing budget.

So the speed of their decline is greatly exaggerated by this and not entirely reflective of the drop in utilization.

Personally, I see no reason the USPS couldn't remain and remain as a useful service if they transitioned to being better at sending/tracking packages as opposed to letters.

UPS and FedEx are great and all, but they've nowhere near the customer focus that the USPS has. And in many cases companies offering shipping services already leverage the USPS to deliver useful mail and packages -- it's a great service for them, because they can get the attention that the average citizen cannot. I think there's plenty of room to expand on what works for the USPS, maintaining a useful baseline service for Americans.

All that said: yes, their marketing has been atrocious, embarrassing, unhelpful and utterly unnecessary lately.

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#14

Post by grhino »

tvon wrote: post #8

Is the author equating email with Google or am I missing something?

Yeah, the addition of Google in the title feels like link bait, although the author may not have intended it that way. It would have been more honest with email in place of Google.

Honestly, stuffing letters into file cabinets makes me cringe. I just think of the impending annoyance of having to sort through the pile of useless information that I'll feel the compulsion to shred while I do it.

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#15

Post by timjahn »

roc wrote: post #12
timjahn wrote: post #2

This is a perfect example of why the USPS is on its way out. People haven't forgotten about the USPS. They simply naturally no longer have a need for it. We often check our mail once a week! Why? Because we don't get anything useful in the mail. Just junk mail. Once a week, we think "Have we checked the mail this week? Hmm, better go check it." No amount of advertising by the USPS is going to save them. They're not g…

To be fair: the USPS is being rushed out the door via a legislative hit job. They've been required to accumulate a reserve of 75 years-worth of worker benefits (retirement and healthcare) -- something I don't believe any other company or government service has to do -- and build up that reserve in 10 years, on their existing budget. So the speed of their decline is greatly exaggerated by this and not entirely reflect…

I'm aware of the government requirements on USPS but I believe that's irrelevant. The USPS would still be in the decline it is today regardless of whether or not they had to stash away all that money today, 5 years from now, or never.

It's simple: people don't use the mail as much as they used to. And that trend is only going to continue. People will never increase their use of the USPS.

"UPS and FedEx are great and all, but they've nowhere near the customer focus that the USPS has."

I must have a very different experience with the USPS then you. Any time I go to the post office (which now is maybe once every year or two), the employees are extremely disgruntled, not happy that you're there, and not very interested in helping you get what you need done.

More importantly, though, in my experience, the USPS is horrible at its core job: transporting and delivering mail. They have "tracking" that doesn't actually track - it simply tells you the package has left the origin and arrived at the destination - nothing in between.

Mail is consistently lost, delivered to the wrong address, or opened before delivery (by who knows).

Again, this is my experience. I suspect it's not unique, but your mile probably varies.

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#16

Post by hammerdr »

This is something that is very close to my family so I have a bit of experience with how the Postal Service is going.

The big sell of the postal service is that it costs the same amount to send a letter from San Francisco to Los Angeles as it does to send a letter from the bayou in Louisiana to Honolulu, Hawaii. In this, physical mail is the big equalizer.

The USPS is also required to deliver mail to even the most remote of places because if the mail system did not work for everyone then several things would start to break: collecting taxes or votes or anything that a normal citizen should require can be done through mail, at minimum.

Really, the only way to replace mail is to provide the same level of reliability and free-to-receive service for another communication medium such as telephone or internet.

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#18

Post by patio11 »

roc wrote: post #12
timjahn wrote: post #2

This is a perfect example of why the USPS is on its way out. People haven't forgotten about the USPS. They simply naturally no longer have a need for it. We often check our mail once a week! Why? Because we don't get anything useful in the mail. Just junk mail. Once a week, we think "Have we checked the mail this week? Hmm, better go check it." No amount of advertising by the USPS is going to save them. They're not g…

To be fair: the USPS is being rushed out the door via a legislative hit job. They've been required to accumulate a reserve of 75 years-worth of worker benefits (retirement and healthcare) -- something I don't believe any other company or government service has to do -- and build up that reserve in 10 years, on their existing budget. So the speed of their decline is greatly exaggerated by this and not entirely reflect…

Defenders of the Post Office like to say this, but it is at odds with reality.

The prefunding requirement only requires them to have the NPV value of future payments for everyone who currently or formerly works for them. This is how everyone should accumulate pensions: the alternative is an accounting gimmick in which you promise unsustainable future payments today and then make yourself scarce (or ask for the taxpayer to clean up your mess) when they come due tomorrow.

(The minimum requirement for all employers is that they implement pay-as-you-go, which means that someone's pension should be fully funded at the point where they start drawing benefits. This means that, if you hypothetically have 100k employees who are 5 years from retirement, you can report a pension fund with no assets as fully funded today. This gives you five years to look under the seat cushions for the $25 billion you need to come up with to avoid insolvency. Congress has decided to not let the Post Office implement pay-as-you-go because Congress anticipates that the Post Office will, if allowed to do that, report "The Post Office is profitable on its own revenues and receives no support from the federal government" reliably every year until their pension fund implodes with a 13 figure uncovered liability.)

They're separately required to produce accounting projections for the next 75 years, but those don't have a funding mandate attached to them.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/CNBC/Sections/News_And_Analysis/...

The part most relevant to the discussion is the paragraphs surrounding: "Under current law, PAEA (P.L. 109-435) requires USPS to determine the actuarial present value of future retiree health payments for current or former employees and to amortize that liability over a 40 year period."

Re: United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

#19

Post by jballanc »

sp332 wrote: post #17

It's a federal offense to steal someone's mail out of their mailbox. No such protections exist for email.

This is an excellent point! As "technologists" I think we believe that a meritocracy of technological prowess should decide who survives, but that view threatens to really short sell the social ramifications of such moves.

We replaced phones with the internet, but in doing so lost common-carrier protections because we were paying attention to the technology not the law. If we replace mail with email and don't retain the same legally protected status on private communications, we'll have only ourselves to blame.

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