So is UPS more than twice the rate of FedEx postage. Nope.
Sometimes the private sector just does not live up to promise of competition. The most egregious example I can think of is education. The public schools cost about $10,000 per pupil per year where I live. A secular private school will run about $25,000 for a year's tuition. Yet the public schools are bogged down with teacher salaries and pensions that are way more costly that those in the private schools. Where does the money go? With tuition fees as they are, one can kiss private education goodbye except for the rich.
Pardon my asking, but what does your post, apparently about local schools, have to do with the competition between UPS and FedEx?
your secular private school is a “one off” while the public schools are just a volume business. Quantity vs quality.
Public schools have no incentive to produce quality. Public schols are there to bloat the administrators and inflate the collection of taxes.
Private schools are there to deliver the quality.
You can’t get a sports/muscle car performance out of a mass produced yugo or trebe.
False. That $10,000 per pupil per year cost generally does not include the costs of the physical plant and infrastructure or its depreciation, which is generally financed through separate budget mechanisms. That's just the cost of salaries, equipment and supplies, and maintenance.
And the previous poster's note on quality versus quantity is spot on, with one caveat -- people pay $25000 because that's what the market will bear. What that means is that the competing institution -- public schools -- is perceived as so abysmally bad by potential consumers that they are willing to pay 2.5 times that amount to avoid sending their children there.
Also, given that price point, I'm betting you're in a relatively high-end city like NYC, DC, Chicago, or SF. In those situations, the $25,000 price tag serves (1) to prevent the nice progressive mommy's from having to have their children associate with the "wrong" kind of kid, and (2) provides the children and their parents access to an exclusive network that will likely generate far greater returns in the future.
UPS might not be more than twice the rate of FedEx, but what they don’t hit you with on cost they make up for in lack of service. They have very limited delivery hours, if a package needs a signature it’s very hard for them to switch delivery location and if you need to go pick it up it has to be at the main regional office they won’t send it to any of their many UPS stores. And they’re really fond of chucking deliveries over the fence.