Read a great article from Roger Kay talking about the impact of the eventual demise of the Post Office. Roger explores how this might impact our lives on both a practical and emotional level.
The catalyst for this Forbes article is recent news that the U.S. Post Office, one of the oldest institutions in the U.S. is giving up on next-day delivery of first class mail. They just cannot make the economics work. It is just too expensive to deliver a letter for $.45 the next day. In addition to not delivering next-day any more, they are increasing the price of a stamp, AND shuttering more than half of their processing centers. How big an impact will this be?
Well, the Post Office in 2011 will ship about 70 BILLION first class items, 42% for delivery the next day. The big question is how much will we miss it?