Where do you think most USPS revenue comes from?
People have pitched a fit when things like Saturday delivery and closing low-volume posts get proposed, but it’s simple economy of scale stuff.
Personally? I’d be in favor winding down the USPS... anymore, Christmas cards and the occasional letter are the only meaningful things I get via mail.
Doubt it will happen — everybody pitches a fit whenever reasonable wind-downs are proposed.
Everybody loves the romance of pony express and the idea of 10 million people in NYC and 2 people in Timbuktu paying the same price to send letters to each other... but it’s just really not a financially viable model.
I suppose, given I rarely use the USPS - it’s only by proxy (some places do use USPS to deliver packages and I have zero doubt the fuel surcharge will get passed along one way or another) this matters to me...
So long as we don’t get to more taxpayer bailouts and subsidies? Don’t really care about this.
I know it comes from junk mail. A few years ago I sent a priority package to my son who lives two hours east of me outside Albany. It ended up taking 10 days to get there because all packages mailed here, are routed west to Rochester, NY for sorting, then sent on to their destination. I called the postal office here, and complained. He gave me the usual line that they were short-staffed. I told him that was funny, because you guys always seem to have enough staff to deliver junk mail and Amazon packages. The moron told me that USPS prioritizes Amazon packages before their own priority. Now I see that USPS and Amazon are close to splitting.
Maybe if the postal service got rid of some of the fat at the top, they wouldn't always be broke, or have to keep raising rates, and now apply a fuel surcharge.