This comment isn’t about privatization as much as it’s about my sadness over the increasingly narrow purpose of the USPS and what that means for our society. As someone who deeply values the art of sending handwritten letters and cards, I can’t help but feel that we are losing something vital. For centuries, letters have preserved the informal history of our world. They allow us to glimpse the thoughts, emotions, and everyday lives of those who came before us, providing a uniquely human record of our shared experiences.
With the dominance of digital communication and the decline of handwritten correspondence, we risk losing that tangible, deeply personal connection. Emails and text messages, while convenient, are ephemeral. They lack the weight, permanence, and emotional resonance of a handwritten letter. A letter is something you can hold, revisit, and treasure—a piece of someone’s time and care captured on paper. Or maybe I’m just being dramatically nostalgic!
Yes! In the last couple of years I've started corresponding with a few old friends and one new. Even when we disagree on a topic, it is incredibly civil. I can take a few days or weeks to think of a reply. It is lovely.
I agree with you about the social cost of losing the physical, written connections and records, but I have not written letters for a long time now. Maybe I should begin again...
You should! It always surprises me how touched people are to receive even a simple handwritten note. I do it often as a school leader to colleagues. And it’s just as much for the writer as it is for the recipient.
I agree with everything you said. I love getting a letter or post card from a friend. To think that someone took the time to write to me is a treasure to my heart.
It makes me sad that the 50-60 Christmas cards we used to receive at Christmas has dwindled to 8-10 over the past 10 or so years. We are lucky if we re
We are lucky if we receive a “Merry Christmas from our family to yours” on instagram or fb that is a general post to everyone on someone’s friends list.
We still send 40-50 Christmas cards, all hand written. We want people to know we are thinking of them specifically no matter how “expensive” stamps are.
The same people who want to sell USPS are the same people who have actively worked to derail its service, so now they can say, “Look how expensive it is! It’s not working!” and use it to build support for a sale.
We’re now seeing what happens when Private Equity gets a hold of hospitals, prisons, and other necessary public entities (not to mention restaurant chains and retail), and it’s not good. If the USPS were to be sold, there needs to be some solid guardrails written into the sale.
This is all true, until you get to the IF! There cannot be an IF.
I am not being overly dramatic when I say the USPS is an essential service, and without it, this country will be degraded in countless ways. It is already being weaponized by profiteers within our government.
The USPS must be by the people in order to be for the people.
It is an essential service that must be funded by our tax dollars, just like our military. It must never be expected to make a profit, only serve the people.
Unfortunately, there are those within our government that cannot comprehend the role of service without profit. We must not allow them to prevail. We must re-organize the USPS to be a public service for the public good.
Do we wring our hands that our interstates aren’t generating profits? How much money do we pour into those? The biggest budget is military and no one is saying “geez. They should stop losing money!”
I dont see how we benefit from privatizing it. Fed ex, UPS and other services have often contracted the last miles of a delivery to usps because that’s cheaper for them then setting up service to hard-to-reach areas. We’ve determined that we value this service to be available to all americans.
Sharon, I have been told that the post office is part of the constitution, therefore Congress would have to privatize it. I believe that is similar to what you are saying in this explanation. However, what is the likelihood that will happen? I am a rural mail carrier with 25 years in.
USPS delivers approximately 23.8 million packages per day. UPS delivers approximately 14.2 million packages per day. Fed ex delivers approximately 16.5 million packages per day. It would really make a difference in our society if we all (I.e. government leadership) acknowledged that business and public service are not the same thing. USPS is- and always has been- a public service. We will all lose enormously if the oligarchs take over this vital public service.
As a pharmacist working in a rural community I can attest that Kate’s situation happens far more often than one would think. However, I worry that privatizing the USPS would leave my patients without the option to use mail order pharmacies altogether. Would the universal service mandate still be in place if the USPS were sold?
My dad worked for the post office for 31 years and although there are many things that need to be redirected with them, his pension helps to provide a comfortable retirement for my parents. I hope that a sale wouldn’t affect the current retirees receiving pension.
Imagine all the mail that goes APO, FPO having to go thru anyone but the USPS. Talk about a nightmare. A private company would be salivating for that job.
Yes! I recently sent a care package to the base in Okinawa before the birth of my niece. It was so easy and affordable. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like if someone were trying to profit off of it!
Considering that 90% of my mail is now just advertising or soliciting donations, I've always thought that changing residential delivery to 3x week instead of 6x should be a consideration....
I completely agree that privatizing is not a good option for the mail service....
The USPS is a service, not a for profit industry. It is sad though that the majority of mail that I receive goes from the mailbox to the recycle can. The obligations of the investment community to send hard copy mailings of various documents adds to landfill waste or recycle waste. These and the local advertisements are the largest mail documents that we receive. Mail prescriptions have become a hassle for us because we do not know when they will arrive and in Texas temperatures, they don't need to be in the mailbox for more than a few hours. So we moved all to the local drugstore. We definitely need to upgrade the equipment for the USPS but the forecast for future hard copy mail is difficult to establish in our digital age. I cannot see myself returning to letters and cards as WhatsApp, texting and emails are faster and don't affect my arthritic hands. And our upcoming generations do not write, they type. I do not agree with privatizing our postal service, but we do need an upgrade. And what about the cost to recycle junk mail? Without the junk mail, the USPS would be in worse shape. What hard copy mail will survive the next 30 years? How long will an investment in upgrading facilities for the USPS be relevant? This is not an easy fix.
This post was incredibly timely as my home-educated teenagers and I just today finished watching "The Crazy History of the United States Postal Service Workshop" from bookclub. Lots of good discussion for my teens and I on the topic! They're quite glad that children can no longer be mailed via USPS. :)
On the topic of privatization, we feel it would be a losing deal especially for us in the tiny mountain town we live in. We rely on USPS for lots of modern-day conveniences to reach us. We think the likelihood of a privately-owned postal service making enough profit to continue regular service to small, hard-to-access towns like ours would be dim. It's already an incredible struggle to maintain the service as it is (high cost of living means high turnover for postal employees).
I’m going to guess that my small post office within a city is not the only one that is greatly mismanaged. I got a UPS box trying get around packages and important documents not making it to me, but sadly I have learned that if the process puts my mail in the hands of the local postal system it can be lost anyway. I wish someone would genuinely study, retrain or remove people that aren’t doing their jobs honorably.
Honestly, UPS isn't much better. I've never had a package lost by the post office. I have had two packages lost by UPS, and they wouldn't mark them lost for months (therefore I didn't get the insurance payout). I worry about private equity caring more about their profits than distributing our mail.
I am in the process of setting up mail delivery of regular prescriptions. My mail service in Minneapolis has been good, so I am hoping for the best. I got tired of waiting in line for 40 minutes to pick up a prescription.
I’ve heard that the USPS used to also have banking services, and that is they started offering banking services again, like money orders, like they used to do, that they would have the capital to use. Has anyone heard this argument, and is it feasible??
My concern right now is the theft of gift cards and checks from the mail. I have had more than one stolen when mailing across the country. It seems like the personnel needs to be scrutinized somehow whether it be the USPS or a private entity. It’s a very sad state of affairs when you can’t trust the mail to get where it’s supposed to go.
If they are going to sell it, they should sell it to state and/or local governments only. Let’s the USPS deliver from state to state and the state postal service delivers from USPS to the door. States get a tax deduction for funding the state postal service and then all the management is done at the state level. Keep it a public service but let the states handle it how they want. It cannot go to private industry and become a for profit company.
Better yet, provide the proper funding and system enhancements to just make it work better than it does now.
This comment isn’t about privatization as much as it’s about my sadness over the increasingly narrow purpose of the USPS and what that means for our society. As someone who deeply values the art of sending handwritten letters and cards, I can’t help but feel that we are losing something vital. For centuries, letters have preserved the informal history of our world. They allow us to glimpse the thoughts, emotions, and everyday lives of those who came before us, providing a uniquely human record of our shared experiences.
With the dominance of digital communication and the decline of handwritten correspondence, we risk losing that tangible, deeply personal connection. Emails and text messages, while convenient, are ephemeral. They lack the weight, permanence, and emotional resonance of a handwritten letter. A letter is something you can hold, revisit, and treasure—a piece of someone’s time and care captured on paper. Or maybe I’m just being dramatically nostalgic!
Yes! In the last couple of years I've started corresponding with a few old friends and one new. Even when we disagree on a topic, it is incredibly civil. I can take a few days or weeks to think of a reply. It is lovely.
You touch on an important part of why I love letter writing so much-it forces you to slow down. We could all use more of that!
Here here!
I agree with you about the social cost of losing the physical, written connections and records, but I have not written letters for a long time now. Maybe I should begin again...
You should! It always surprises me how touched people are to receive even a simple handwritten note. I do it often as a school leader to colleagues. And it’s just as much for the writer as it is for the recipient.
I agree with everything you said. I love getting a letter or post card from a friend. To think that someone took the time to write to me is a treasure to my heart.
It makes me sad that the 50-60 Christmas cards we used to receive at Christmas has dwindled to 8-10 over the past 10 or so years. We are lucky if we re
Oops hit enter too soon 🤪.
We are lucky if we receive a “Merry Christmas from our family to yours” on instagram or fb that is a general post to everyone on someone’s friends list.
We still send 40-50 Christmas cards, all hand written. We want people to know we are thinking of them specifically no matter how “expensive” stamps are.
The same people who want to sell USPS are the same people who have actively worked to derail its service, so now they can say, “Look how expensive it is! It’s not working!” and use it to build support for a sale.
We’re now seeing what happens when Private Equity gets a hold of hospitals, prisons, and other necessary public entities (not to mention restaurant chains and retail), and it’s not good. If the USPS were to be sold, there needs to be some solid guardrails written into the sale.
This is all true, until you get to the IF! There cannot be an IF.
I am not being overly dramatic when I say the USPS is an essential service, and without it, this country will be degraded in countless ways. It is already being weaponized by profiteers within our government.
The USPS must be by the people in order to be for the people.
It is an essential service that must be funded by our tax dollars, just like our military. It must never be expected to make a profit, only serve the people.
Unfortunately, there are those within our government that cannot comprehend the role of service without profit. We must not allow them to prevail. We must re-organize the USPS to be a public service for the public good.
Do we wring our hands that our interstates aren’t generating profits? How much money do we pour into those? The biggest budget is military and no one is saying “geez. They should stop losing money!”
I dont see how we benefit from privatizing it. Fed ex, UPS and other services have often contracted the last miles of a delivery to usps because that’s cheaper for them then setting up service to hard-to-reach areas. We’ve determined that we value this service to be available to all americans.
Exactly this! If we fund the military we can fund the postal service. I agree!
Sharon, I have been told that the post office is part of the constitution, therefore Congress would have to privatize it. I believe that is similar to what you are saying in this explanation. However, what is the likelihood that will happen? I am a rural mail carrier with 25 years in.
It seems to me that privatization means for profit and that has pushed us backward, which does not serve the people.
USPS delivers approximately 23.8 million packages per day. UPS delivers approximately 14.2 million packages per day. Fed ex delivers approximately 16.5 million packages per day. It would really make a difference in our society if we all (I.e. government leadership) acknowledged that business and public service are not the same thing. USPS is- and always has been- a public service. We will all lose enormously if the oligarchs take over this vital public service.
As a pharmacist working in a rural community I can attest that Kate’s situation happens far more often than one would think. However, I worry that privatizing the USPS would leave my patients without the option to use mail order pharmacies altogether. Would the universal service mandate still be in place if the USPS were sold?
My dad worked for the post office for 31 years and although there are many things that need to be redirected with them, his pension helps to provide a comfortable retirement for my parents. I hope that a sale wouldn’t affect the current retirees receiving pension.
Imagine all the mail that goes APO, FPO having to go thru anyone but the USPS. Talk about a nightmare. A private company would be salivating for that job.
Yes! I recently sent a care package to the base in Okinawa before the birth of my niece. It was so easy and affordable. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like if someone were trying to profit off of it!
Considering that 90% of my mail is now just advertising or soliciting donations, I've always thought that changing residential delivery to 3x week instead of 6x should be a consideration....
I completely agree that privatizing is not a good option for the mail service....
The USPS is a service, not a for profit industry. It is sad though that the majority of mail that I receive goes from the mailbox to the recycle can. The obligations of the investment community to send hard copy mailings of various documents adds to landfill waste or recycle waste. These and the local advertisements are the largest mail documents that we receive. Mail prescriptions have become a hassle for us because we do not know when they will arrive and in Texas temperatures, they don't need to be in the mailbox for more than a few hours. So we moved all to the local drugstore. We definitely need to upgrade the equipment for the USPS but the forecast for future hard copy mail is difficult to establish in our digital age. I cannot see myself returning to letters and cards as WhatsApp, texting and emails are faster and don't affect my arthritic hands. And our upcoming generations do not write, they type. I do not agree with privatizing our postal service, but we do need an upgrade. And what about the cost to recycle junk mail? Without the junk mail, the USPS would be in worse shape. What hard copy mail will survive the next 30 years? How long will an investment in upgrading facilities for the USPS be relevant? This is not an easy fix.
This post was incredibly timely as my home-educated teenagers and I just today finished watching "The Crazy History of the United States Postal Service Workshop" from bookclub. Lots of good discussion for my teens and I on the topic! They're quite glad that children can no longer be mailed via USPS. :)
On the topic of privatization, we feel it would be a losing deal especially for us in the tiny mountain town we live in. We rely on USPS for lots of modern-day conveniences to reach us. We think the likelihood of a privately-owned postal service making enough profit to continue regular service to small, hard-to-access towns like ours would be dim. It's already an incredible struggle to maintain the service as it is (high cost of living means high turnover for postal employees).
I’m going to guess that my small post office within a city is not the only one that is greatly mismanaged. I got a UPS box trying get around packages and important documents not making it to me, but sadly I have learned that if the process puts my mail in the hands of the local postal system it can be lost anyway. I wish someone would genuinely study, retrain or remove people that aren’t doing their jobs honorably.
Honestly, UPS isn't much better. I've never had a package lost by the post office. I have had two packages lost by UPS, and they wouldn't mark them lost for months (therefore I didn't get the insurance payout). I worry about private equity caring more about their profits than distributing our mail.
I am in the process of setting up mail delivery of regular prescriptions. My mail service in Minneapolis has been good, so I am hoping for the best. I got tired of waiting in line for 40 minutes to pick up a prescription.
I’ve heard that the USPS used to also have banking services, and that is they started offering banking services again, like money orders, like they used to do, that they would have the capital to use. Has anyone heard this argument, and is it feasible??
My concern right now is the theft of gift cards and checks from the mail. I have had more than one stolen when mailing across the country. It seems like the personnel needs to be scrutinized somehow whether it be the USPS or a private entity. It’s a very sad state of affairs when you can’t trust the mail to get where it’s supposed to go.
If they are going to sell it, they should sell it to state and/or local governments only. Let’s the USPS deliver from state to state and the state postal service delivers from USPS to the door. States get a tax deduction for funding the state postal service and then all the management is done at the state level. Keep it a public service but let the states handle it how they want. It cannot go to private industry and become a for profit company.
Better yet, provide the proper funding and system enhancements to just make it work better than it does now.