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At one point in American history, the concept of one price for all made sense to promote national unity. Today, with Internet, TV, telephones, and other communication systems, the mail system in no longer the communications glue that holds the country together. City dwellers should not have to subsidize the expensive mail delivery to those who chose to live in the mountains of Montana.

Furthermore, local mail delivery within the same zip code or metropolitan area should be at a lower cost than mail that requires additional transportation and handling to be sent to other regions or states.

The rate were never the same to promote national unity, they're the same to make it easy to mail stuff. If we make some sort of bogus sliding scale for postage rates that depend on the distance traveled and population density of the area it will be nearly impossible to send mail without actually going to the post office. On the other side if you think it's cheaper to deliver mail in NY vs Montana you should look at the size of the vehicles. There's only so much mail they can stick in one of those. You're average NYC appartment complex has enough addresses that it's the ONLY place that carrier serves, some of the big ones require 2 or 3 carriers to handle the mail. Think about sending 6 guys to one block (or 6 trips in the truck, different buildings are handled different ways), that is not cheap. Not compared to some of those BFE Montana places where 6 guys can handle the entire town.