71–78 of 78 posts
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Parcel delivery is clearly not a natural monopoly; there are several carriers, including some that only have a limited footprint. I don't see why you couldn't expand from parcels to letters; although economics would probably be tough.
> I don't see why you couldn't expand from parcels to letters; If they have a state sanctioned monopoly you legally just can't.
It’s striking that while many states push citizens toward digital-only public services, almost none provide a state-run email service. Instead, official communication is effectively outsourced to foreign, commercial platforms with uneven privacy records (e.g. Gmail). If governments are serious about digital sovereignty and data protection, they should operate their own email infrastructure and issue each citizen an o…
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And the reason the existing public corporation shut down service in Denmark > citing a 90% decline in letter mail since 2000
Canada Post is in financial crisis for similar reasons.
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In the Netherlands the post office is contractually obliged to deliver mail but they are LOSING money on it. Even the government themselves went full digital... Personally I think that if people think post services are a national priority it should be subsidised with tax money. Cannot expect a private company to burn money.
Canada Post is losing money on parcel delivery, not just regular mail. They are pretty awful as a service (for anything serious at least) and are constantly going on strike, so everyone is flocking to private competition. I've had 3 different packages end up in a purgatory in 2 different strikes and now I use Fedex instead. Which is funny because parcel delivery has only grown over the last decade while Canada Post l…
Why doesn't the government just make the strikes illegal?
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I generally agree (my post history should back my anti-neoliberalism), but I suppose eventually the postal service becomes a relic that can't operate on the same terms. At what loss should we accept a letter to be delivered? Or should they charge the real cost of delivering it? EU governments are cutting costs everywhere, this is the end result of recession-era policies. Of course it could also be due to mismanagemen…
I am for postal service being reformed and handle digital communication as well. But let's not forget that network and electricity are not given once and for all. We may end up experiencing quite long periods without them. Country that would get rid of related infra and know-how would be helpless.
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Canada Post is losing money on parcel delivery, not just regular mail. They are pretty awful as a service (for anything serious at least) and are constantly going on strike, so everyone is flocking to private competition. I've had 3 different packages end up in a purgatory in 2 different strikes and now I use Fedex instead. Which is funny because parcel delivery has only grown over the last decade while Canada Post l…
When strikes happen, do packages really just vanish into the void? Why doesn't the government just make the strikes illegal?
Canada Post is a crown corp so they operate independently but have a charter they owe to the federal govt. The feds can and have legislated back to work, but it is very unpopular when they do, and tends to just kick problems down the road.
They need to majorly rethink and restructure. I know we can continue to just pay, it’s an institution and we are a rich country who can afford institutions. But it will lose money forever until we recon with how times have changed.
It's been decades since I wrote a letter and mailed it.
How long has it been since you needed to mail a physical document to a bank, a government department, or something similar?
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Canada Post is in financial crisis for similar reasons.
In the Netherlands the post office is contractually obliged to deliver mail but they are LOSING money on it. Even the government themselves went full digital... Personally I think that if people think post services are a national priority it should be subsidised with tax money. Cannot expect a private company to burn money.
Not really. There is the ‘mijn berichten’ (my messages) app. You can indicate which government services should send messages through the app instead of by physical mail. I have checked everything, including the tax service. So now I get anything related to taxes through the messages app. And then they send a physical letter anyway which arrives 2 days after the digital one. Every. Single. Time. As far as I can tell it’s only the tax service that does this.
They claim the app is meant to save on paper waste, but if they keep sending things by mail anyway then what is the point.