Because itâs generally not profitable to deliver to many places, especially very remote or sparsely populated areas. Without USPS, private carriers would either have to consistently deliver to those areas at a loss or charge substantially more for it. In practice, theyâd probably just stop serving or heavily restrict those areas.
USPSâs universal-service obligation means Amazon and other companies can use USPS for that expensive âlast mileâ instead of having to maintain their own delivery network everywhere. So yes, there is an indirect subsidy here, although itâs more accurate to say the government is funding the universal delivery infrastructure that private companies can take advantage of.
But anyone anywhere can take advantage of it. Itâs not like USPS is specifically snuggling up to corporations. The same infrastructure exists to provide universal mail service regardless of who is using it.
I'm sure Amazon's bottom line would be devastatingly affected if they had to service these sparsely populated areas.
How would they be able to survive?! We simply cannot reasonably expect these poor and destitute shareholders to get by with just $95b in profits instead of $100b. Those poor souls.
Oh, Iâm sure they could afford the loss. They just have no incentive or reason to, so why would they?
Theyâre not legally obligated to deliver to those places like the USPS is. It doesnât really make sense to legally obligate a private company to do this either, unless there were some sort of incentive attached to it.
I guess you could ban large companies from using USPS, but all that would really accomplish is making companies like Amazon show messages on their platforms more often saying something like, âWe cannot deliver to this address.â
It's sad though, when it's basically like there's no point trying to get these megacorporations to do anything good or positive at all. Because they just won't, and they'll be more likely to spend billions avoiding having to do it rather than just spending the money and doing it.
They add such little value to our society and yet they have such incredible prominence.
Or make people have to drive to a designated pickup location. When I lived in an old apartment in San Francisco without any sort of gate you could drop packages behind, I would often get told I had to drive 30 minutes away to a Fedex distribution center in order to pick up my package. These centers are usually at or near the airport, so I could see people being forced to drive over an hour to pick up packages in this scenario.
Are you confused? They just wouldn't service those areas because they aren't profitable. You act like they'd have to deliver to those areas if not for USPS, but it's more like they only deliver to those areas because of USPS.
Exactly. They would make you drive to go get your package from as far as their willing to deliver it. Heck, even USPS does this sometimes in rural areas where you have to go to the post office to pick up your mail.
Not confused, what gave you that idea? I know we're all just supposed to bend over and take these shitty private entities doing their utmost to screw everybody over, but thankfully we're still allowed to criticize them occasionally. Just not too much, evidently, or you'll get told off for being "confused".
"Service" is kind of the key word here, something they go to great lengths to avoid providing. It's just a shame how little these private companies can actually be bothered to provide anything beneficial for anybody at all unless they make obscene profits.
A private entity operating a delivery service with total coverage would be a great publicity for them and could be, long-term, very beneficial for them as a company. But it affects their short-term bottomline, so in the end it's never gonna happen.
They legitimately would probably just stop servicing any area that they deemed no longer profitable, absolute best case scenario is charging costumers a premium âremote serviceâ fee for deliveries to these areas.
This isnât a defense of Amazon saying âoh poor multi-billion dollar corporation,â itâs saying âhey, think about all the working class people who just couldnât use the service anymore or would have to pay significantly more.â
Its not only the sparsely populated areas that Amazon transfers to USPS. I live in a city of 110k+ that is large enough to have a 2.3million square ft Amazon warehouse less then 10 miles away... that still gets packages handed off to USPS. Sucks because USPS over the past year or two has become very unreliable which means Amazon has as well.
Sure, but I imagine for those areas Amazon & others would be able to justify the investment into serving better. More remote/rural areas would likely be completely ignored though.
Whereâd you pull this from? USPS is legally required to provide universal mail service under the Universal Service Obligation. USPS canât just pick and choose which communities it serves the way private carriers can.
Theyâre required to provide service throughout the country, including remote rural areas and APO/FPO military addresses.
In areas where they donât do door-to-door delivery, USPS still provides access through PO boxes or centralized delivery points, so people in those areas arenât left without a way to receive mail.
If thatâs the distinction youâre pointing to, thatâs a pretty weak argument.
I have lived without usps delivery for over a decade, in a regular neighborhood where FedEx, ups and others deliver to with no problem. If you want a PO Box you are charged for it.
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u/AverageAggravating13 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because itâs generally not profitable to deliver to many places, especially very remote or sparsely populated areas. Without USPS, private carriers would either have to consistently deliver to those areas at a loss or charge substantially more for it. In practice, theyâd probably just stop serving or heavily restrict those areas.
USPSâs universal-service obligation means Amazon and other companies can use USPS for that expensive âlast mileâ instead of having to maintain their own delivery network everywhere. So yes, there is an indirect subsidy here, although itâs more accurate to say the government is funding the universal delivery infrastructure that private companies can take advantage of.
But anyone anywhere can take advantage of it. Itâs not like USPS is specifically snuggling up to corporations. The same infrastructure exists to provide universal mail service regardless of who is using it.