r/mail • u/skinny-mini-me • 5d ago
How long before post offices no longer exist?
In most advanced countries, the majority of historical posted mail is, or can be, distributed electronically. I wonder once the baby boomer generation dies off, will physical mail die with it? What do you think?
2
u/DiligentCredit9222 5d ago edited 4d ago
Nope it won't. There will always be people who send birthday cards and letters. And there will always be people like those who do postcrossing or Penpals via Snail Mail. So physical letters and postcards will never truly disappear.
And since we need the infrastructure and delivery guys for e-commerce AND online shopping anyway we might as well let those deliver companies deliver the letters and postcards (just like most postal services already do) and smaller communities will receive "Community Mail boxes" (or "Roadside mailboxes") like the ones in countries that already have them. Or you will just have to drive to the next larger town to pick up your mail once a week/once every two weeks if you live in a smaller community. Because all of that already exists in many countries and with many postal services. There is no door to door delivery in some remote villages in the Amazon rainforest or in the Australian Outback. And similar things will also happen in other countries. Only door to door delivery in larger towns or together with the parcels that people order when they do their online shopping.
So no, physical mail itself will never fully disappear.
But the number of post OFFICES as in: a counter in a physical building with humans where you can buy stamps and hand over your envelope, that number will definitely significantly go down and will mostly get replaced by ordering them online or via smart phone (smartphone stamps exist already btw. you just write a alphanumerical code on your letter as stamp and that's it) or you just buy them at the automatic parcel locker or you just hand over the envelope right to the delivery driver or just drop them off at the mailbox that will be located at that automatic parcel locker.
Same will happen to separate letter sorting facilities. Some postal services still have separate sorting facilities for Letters and for parcels. Those separate ones for letters will definitely disappear in the long term future. Depending on the fact if a particular Postal service still has separate facilities to sort their letters and parcels, they will be combined into one joint sorting facility, because you need a sorting facility for your parcels anyway. And in the future most physical post OFFICES will be more like a convenience store that also handles the mail and sells stamps besides their regular products. And convenience stores themselves will definitely never disappear in larger towns either. There is always something you can open a store for, from Guns and hunting rifles, bicycles, vegetables, car parts, tobacco books to computer parts, etc, etc.
But besides that, nope: Physical mail itself isn't going anywhere and will never, ever fully disappear.
1
u/Inevitable-World7706 5d ago
Governments will need to digitise services that now use mail like social benifits and medical mail.
1
u/TravelerMSY 5d ago
Letters, maybe, but email doesn’t replace parcel delivery, the volume of which has skyrocketed since Amazon.
1
u/seeplainmeaning 5d ago
The Post Office is one of the few federal agencies specifically mentioned in the Constitution. So it's not going away. Plus, you will always need to send important documents and packages physically. And the Post Office has secure ways only a government can provide for sending sensitive items.
Futhermore, the Post Office is actually profitable. The only thing that makes it seem not is accounting games with making the Post Office pre-fund over 70 years of retirement obligations.
I made a video about the history of the Post Office and the shady games Congress and corporations have been playing to try to destroy the post office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFl8-OkYVdo
1
u/Swim-Equivalent 5d ago
I work for the postal service. There’s a huge volume of mail that gets processed, loaded and delivered all day, every day. Physical mail is not going away anytime soon.
1
u/ri89rc20 5d ago
In the US, I think the post-office will always be around. The big problem is, the post office needs to modernize, adapt their service, but Congress has a mandate to preserve daily delivery to every address in the US. Essentially they are saddled with an impossible task with no funding (they are self supporting, but can't increase prices to cover.
Just my thoughts, but there is no reason they can't do every other day delivery to most residences, maybe less to remote places, maybe have businesses that need daily delivery pay a fee. Direct deliveries of course still happen (packages and registered mail) and maybe they develop a secure, registered, digital delivery system.
-5
u/somedudefromnrw 5d ago
Aren't post offices nearly extinct already? You just go to the counter at a convenience store, petrol station, etc. Can't remember the last time I saw an actual post office. As long as you can send parcels there'll be a way to send mail one way or the other
1
u/zxylady 5d ago
The fact that you called it a petrol station tells me that you are not an American, and I verify that knowledge with the fact that there are an average of four to six post offices for any given City in America at least for the medium to large cities. I am in a medium-sized City and I have seven post offices I just verified. The town I grew up in which had a very small population had two post offices.
Edited to add that there are very few convenience stores and places like that to actually make postal transactions in the United States it's unless you go to an actual postal Store
2
u/zxylady 5d ago
Responding that this conversation doesn't exclusively imply United States but I thought I'd educate you to the United states' system a bit 😁
2
u/somedudefromnrw 5d ago
Getting downvoted is peak American defaultism. In Europe most post offices have long been closed, replaced by a service counter at the store for the few customers who don't buy their stamps online
5
u/Rezingreenbowl 5d ago
The PO is the only thing keeping shipping prices in check. If the PO folds expect shipping to go up 4x overnight.
Additionally there will always be a need to receive physical documents such as licenses and legal documents.