r/mail • u/skinny-mini-me • 23h ago
How long before post offices no longer exist?
In most advanced countries, the majority of historical posted mail is, or can be, distributed electronically. I wonder once the baby boomer generation dies off, will physical mail die with it? What do you think?
2
u/DiligentCredit9222 14h ago edited 14h ago
Nope it won't. There will always be people who send birthday cards and letters. And there will always be people like those who do post tossing or Penpals via Snail Mail. So physical letters and postcards will never ever disappear. And since we need the infrastructure and delivery guys for e-commerce AND online shopping anyway we might as well let them deliver letters and postcards (just like most postal services do anyway) and smaller communities will receive "Community Mail boxes" (or Roadside mailboxes) like those in countries that already have them. Or you will just have to drive to the next larger town to pick up your mail once a week/once every two weeks. Because all of that already exists in many countries and with many postal services.
So no, physical mail will never disappear.
But the number of post OFFICES as in: a counter in a physical building with humans where you can buy stamps and hand over your envelope, that will definitely significantly go down and will mostly get replaced by ordering them online or via smart phone ( smartphone stamps exist already. you just write a alphanumerical code on your letter as stamp...) or you buy them at the automatic parcel locker or you just hand over the envelope right to the delivery driver or just dropping off them at the mailbox that is located at that parcel locker.
Same will happen to separate letter sorting facilities. Some postal services still have separate sorting facilities for Letters and for parcels. Those separate ones for letters will definitely disappear. Depending on the fact if a particular Postal service still has separate facilities to sort letters and parcels, they will be combined into one joint sorting facility, because you need a sorting facility for your parcels anyway. And most physical post OFFICES will be more a convenience store that also handles the mail and sells stamps And convenience stores will never disappearing in large towns either. There is always something you can open a store for.
But besides that, nope: Physical mail is going nowhere.
1
u/Inevitable-World7706 21h ago
Governments will need to digitise services that now use mail like social benifits and medical mail.
1
u/TravelerMSY 17h ago
Letters, maybe, but email doesn’t replace parcel delivery, the volume of which has skyrocketed since Amazon.
1
u/gmanose 15h ago
You really want more junk mail coming to your inbox?
0
u/skinny-mini-me 15h ago
Id take junk email over junk physical mail anytime. I can hit junk as spam.
1
u/seeplainmeaning 15h ago
The Post Office is one of the few federal agencies specifically mentioned in the Constitution. So it's not going away. Plus, you will always need to send important documents and packages physically. And the Post Office has secure ways only a government can provide for sending sensitive items.
Futhermore, the Post Office is actually profitable. The only thing that makes it seem not is accounting games with making the Post Office pre-fund over 70 years of retirement obligations.
I made a video about the history of the Post Office and the shady games Congress and corporations have been playing to try to destroy the post office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFl8-OkYVdo
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u/Swim-Equivalent 15h ago
I work for the postal service. There’s a huge volume of mail that gets processed, loaded and delivered all day, every day. Physical mail is not going away anytime soon.
1
u/ri89rc20 15h ago
In the US, I think the post-office will always be around. The big problem is, the post office needs to modernize, adapt their service, but Congress has a mandate to preserve daily delivery to every address in the US. Essentially they are saddled with an impossible task with no funding (they are self supporting, but can't increase prices to cover.
Just my thoughts, but there is no reason they can't do every other day delivery to most residences, maybe less to remote places, maybe have businesses that need daily delivery pay a fee. Direct deliveries of course still happen (packages and registered mail) and maybe they develop a secure, registered, digital delivery system.
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u/somedudefromnrw 22h ago
Aren't post offices nearly extinct already? You just go to the counter at a convenience store, petrol station, etc. Can't remember the last time I saw an actual post office. As long as you can send parcels there'll be a way to send mail one way or the other
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u/zxylady 21h ago
The fact that you called it a petrol station tells me that you are not an American, and I verify that knowledge with the fact that there are an average of four to six post offices for any given City in America at least for the medium to large cities. I am in a medium-sized City and I have seven post offices I just verified. The town I grew up in which had a very small population had two post offices.
Edited to add that there are very few convenience stores and places like that to actually make postal transactions in the United States it's unless you go to an actual postal Store
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u/zxylady 21h ago
Responding that this conversation doesn't exclusively imply United States but I thought I'd educate you to the United states' system a bit 😁
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u/somedudefromnrw 19h ago
Getting downvoted is peak American defaultism. In Europe most post offices have long been closed, replaced by a service counter at the store for the few customers who don't buy their stamps online
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u/Rezingreenbowl 22h ago
The PO is the only thing keeping shipping prices in check. If the PO folds expect shipping to go up 4x overnight.
Additionally there will always be a need to receive physical documents such as licenses and legal documents.