dagblog - Comments for "Canada to Stop Delivering Mail to City Homes Over 5 Years"

USPS is how I receive most of

EmmaZahn — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:29:21 +0000

USPS is how I receive most of my online purchase deliveries either by their own priority mail or by

FedEx SmartPost?

When you need to ship low-weight packages to residential customers, consider efficient, economical FedEx SmartPost shipping service. By utilizing the U.S. Postal Service® (USPS) for final delivery, FedEx SmartPost reaches every U.S. address, including P.O. boxes and military APO, FPO and DPO destinations. You can even use FedEx SmartPost to ship to Alaska, Hawaii and all U.S. territories.

FedEx SmartPost is a great solution for online retailers, catalogers, fulfillment houses and direct marketers who are looking for a cost-effective means of shipping low-weight packages to residential customers.

FedEx SmartPost shipping advantages — state-of-the-art technology, 25 strategically located hubs, dock-door to doorstep pickup and delivery, zone-skipping expertise, and an alliance with the USPS — all work together to provide a streamlined process and reliable delivery.

Rarely anymore do I receive shipments by UPS. For the record, I live in a metropolitan area (who doesn't nowadays), not the city proper, but if the official post offices are going to continue to deliver to businesses and make commercial deliveries to residences as the article indicates CanadaPost will, how much will they really save in labor and transportation costs beyond what they likely will anyway from natural attrition and fast-improving mechanization. They already have the leading OCR technology which can and likely will be combined in the near future with self-driving vehicles or (God help us) flying drones and other mechanized features. So why change the basic residential service model now?

Well, what's our actual

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:16:38 +0000

In reply to One man's junk is another

Well, what's our actual out-of-pocket cost, including taxes paid? And what will be the cost if it's post office-to-post office delivery rather than home-to-home? Aside from giving your dog something to chase, the actual time to receive your mail would be faster if they sent you an email/SMS at the processing center rather than waiting for the post lady to walk up your stairs. And since we already know that the NSA can recognize names & addresses from labels, and cross-correlate it all with your IP address/browser/email and hack your accounts, they might as well put this nosiness to good use. I guess we'll then have to include the NSA budget as part of our "how much does a letter cost" calculus.

One man's junk is another

Peter Schwartz — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 14:33:31 +0000

In reply to Does anyone have anything

One man's junk is another man's interesting information.

But yes...plenty...especially boxes...at a lower cost than FEDEX.

Medicines, for one.

Books, for another.

Real letters, for a third.

Does anyone have anything

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:54:58 +0000

In reply to Canada to Stop Delivering Mail to City Homes Over 5 Years

Does anyone have anything delivered by post these days besides junk mail?

And while a PO Box used to be kind of a pain, these days it could work like an ATM - insert your electronic i.d., out slide your letters - no need for big lines. Set up your box at the local strip mall, and you've done away with personal door-to-door delivery, the hugest unnecessary cost.

I agree, EZ. And there are

Peter Schwartz — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 03:11:58 +0000

In reply to MBAs making lives more

I agree, EZ.

And there are lots of ancillary things (which escape me at the moment) they can do to generate revenues. One, I believe, is to serve as a place where people can go to get online, as they do at libraries now. Another is serving as a "final mile" carrier, I believe.

Unfortunately, their mandate now forbids them from doing many of these things.

MBAs making lives more

EmmaZahn — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 18:59:38 +0000

In reply to Canada to Stop Delivering Mail to City Homes Over 5 Years

MBAs making lives more difficult since....forever.

“A leaner work force will create a more flexible and competitive Canada Post,” the post office announced in the summary of a five-point plan. “Canada Post has a mandate to fund its operations with revenues from the sale of its products and services, rather than become a burden on taxpayers.”

That's one of the arguments used by those who want to do away with the US Post Office as well. My question is what burden? Keeping citizens connected is an essential service that should be retained by the top level government. Certainly it should make a best effort to pay for itself but when its normal business practices are disrupted by technological changes, it should invest in whatever upgrades are needed to serve its primary function of keeping us, all of us, connected, even if they operate in the red for a few years. It is what a smart private enterprise would do.

There was a brief mention -- one sentence -- of that function in the article:

“The whole notion of a universal correspondence service is a pretty important one,” he said. “It’s quite a comedown for a national postal system.”

Borrowing from Brad DeLong's lexicon: Why, O, why do we not have a better press corp?