I had a realization that the very existence of private domestic shippers in countries indicates a failure of their government to provide universal infrastructure needed by all citizens.
There may be specialized needs like same-day couriers, special handling requirements and other edge cases, but those should be small specialty houses, not international mega-corps.
A little bit of competition is good … and some if the biggest players on the market are former public providers.
Others have already mentioned this, but OP seems to completely miss the fact that USPS is obligated to perform its affordable, uniform-rate deliveries to rural areas.
https://www.ips-dc.org/the-public-postal-service-and-rural-america/
Rural areas account for 88 percent of the geographic area served by the Postal Service, but just 16 percent of the U.S. population.
Some 57 percent of post offices are in rural areas and while they serve a vital purpose, nearly two-thirds of them have not been profitable in recent years.
Given that most of the population lives in cities, it makes sense that competing operations would form to provide services that can be cheaper, faster, and capable of shipping packages that are extra heavy, large dimensions, or require refrigeration. Specifically because these private shippers rely on USPS for last mile delivery or do not service rural areas at all, they are able to operate with much better margins. These companies grow into megacorps because, as OP mentioned, economies of scale. If someone needs to specialty ship something they are going to prefer to use a well-known business with a proven track record that services the widest area. Once a company is servicing an area, it becomes more efficient and therefore profitable to increase deliveries within that area, creating extra incentives for a shipper to grow.
I’m not here to say that USPS is flawless, but it is inherently at a disadvantage for urban delivery due to the losses it incurs to fulfill its obligation to service the country as a whole.
This is getting long-winded for a showerthoughts response, so I’m just going to link information regarding the additional obstacles USPS faces:
https://govtschemes.org/usps-operational-restructuring-plan-update/
(I realized after reading that govfacts.org are AI generated articles, but there is good information, so I am still including it)
The required obligations of the USPS do hamstring them competitively in some areas, that is true. That said, I don’t believe their charter requires them to permit repackaging and reselling their service.
Since this is a tax-subsidized public amenity, it strikes me as an abuse of the commons to allow a shipping company to ship things on someone else’s behalf using the USPS. It seems directly analogous to digging up the flowers in the park and selling them.
A fun little doc about your selected shipper(USPS), their corruption and pursuit of profit.
A postal worker is harassed and fired for standing up to a toxic culture. His son’s powerful documentary exposes how the USPS was systematically dismantled for profit — at the direct expense of the people who keep it running. A gripping true story of courage, corruption, and a system that turned on its own.
whats really annoying is shipping would not even happen to rural areas for a decent price without the usps in the us. Its one of the bigger subsidies. Honestly same with electrification without the gov pushing it. Everyone dumps on the post office but from my experience they had the best service everything else being equal. Which its not given the republicans love to try and hamstring the operation. I don’t agree private should not be allowed or anything but the governement should always be one with strong privacy protections. They should do the same online with the very same protections.
Internet too. I had to call and ask an internet company to please lay line to my house for years, and they wouldnt do it until 2015.
They kept telling me I’d have to pay half of the cost for a digger, which they said would be a total of 20k.
yeah we saw it less with internet until they started applying the phone line things to internet. even now the current administration cut what it considered broadbrand for subsidy purposes.
The thing is, theres not even a point in banning private competition. I believe somehow it got insinuated that my shower thought also suggested banning private competition, but that wasn’t my intention.
The USPS is subsidized, tax exempt, a subsidiary of a bigger organization, and has built in economies of scale. If someone can compete on that super skewed playing field, more power to them! A side benefit is that private competitors being able to win on price or service despite USPS’s huge advantages all but proves the USPS is dropping the ball, corrupt, or both; it’s a built-in alarm.
How does this work on an international scale? If our hypothetical shipper flies to another country, do they waste time and fuel on an empty return flight?
The international shipper’s logistics would have to be theirs to handle, just as they are today. Any inefficiencies would be passed on to the consumer, as always, and more efficient shippers with better logistics can win on price with their lower overhead.
needed by all citizens
I don’t agree with this premise.
You don’t agree that everyone should be able to mail in vote?
I assumed the question was about packages/bulk goods, not mail.
You don’t have to personally send and receive parcels to depend on that service. If you ever buy goods of any kind, those exchanges depend upon the existence of shipping infrastructure. Everyone but those completely removed from society depends upon it in a very real capacity, just like people without cars still need there to be roads.
Oh, maybe. But once you have the infra to send a person to every house for mail, the rest isn’t as hard.
But we do have that. USPS will ship up to 70lbs, which will cover 99% of use cases.
Mercenary shipping is like mercenary healthcare. Sure we can pretend we don’t need it, or we can avoid it, but it never stops being a cost that eventually comes around to all of us – only with layers of profit added on.
I suppose some citizens could live in the woods completely disconnected from infrastructure, but even those people are highly likely to own products that would have to have been shipped to where they got it.
Even if you don’t use shipping, yes you do.
Yeah but I think it’s kind of nonsensical to believe that the government should be handling the shipping of all goods and mail everywhere.
nonsensical to believe that the government should be handling the shipping
You don’t like the idea of a service run for people by people with open books and no profit margin? Whose policies you can direct at the polls?
Seems ideal.
of all goods and mail everywhere
You cut off my quote.
I do like that idea, and we have it, it’s called the USPS. Lord knows it needs improvement but it does exist.
OP explicitly said in the title “domestic shippers should not exist.”
I think that thinking the government should handle all movement of goods everywhere is ludicrous.
They were the first and only ones that did for a very long time. What do you find nonsensical about it?
ETA the special handling exceptions I mentioned earlier notwithstanding
No, for a very long time it was done almost exclusively by private citizens. Postal services didn’t become widespread until the 18th century. Before that, if you wanted to get letters or goods somewhere else, you either brought them yourself or hired someone to do it for you.
And I find it nonsensical because I think people should be free to move their goods on their own if they want to.
Nothing about providing a nationalized service forbids you from using alternate means you find more suitable. That seems like a false premise to me.
Also, to your other point: What?? They had state-run mail as far back as the Persian Empire!
the very existence of private domestic shippers in countries indicates a failure of their government to provide universal infrastructure needed by all citizens.
Nothing about providing a nationalized service forbids you from using alternate means you find more suitable. That seems like a false premise to me.
These don’t seem particularly compatible. According to you, the mere existence of an alternative is a government failure.
The existence of direct competitors to the government’s are indicative of, but not tantamount to a government failure, yes. If a tax-subsidized government service leaves so much room in the market that a direct, like-for-like competing business can profitably exist, it is hard to envision how that could be so without the government service being a failure in some way.
They had state-run mail in very powerful states with lots of resources like the Persian and Roman empires, but those instances were few and far between. Like I said, postal services did not become widespread until the 18th century.
But you yourself in your post said “domestic shippers should not exist.” So is your point that national postal services should be better, or that private ones shouldn’t exist at all?
My statement was qualified to include edge cases. If you want your product shipped with special care, or with special considerations like refrigeration, or in a time frame shorter than is expectable via bulk mail, then there would be plenty of market for those.
For standard shipping, it is less that I think there is a problem with private entities existing in the space, but that few, if any actually would exist if there was and had always been a national comparable alternative, like there are no non-municipal water services but theoretically could be if not for lack of demand.
I understand why health care should be socialized, but why should package delivery be?
Why stop there, maybe the government should have a monopoly on hair salons and pizzerias since everyone uses those too. /s
Because without the post office, then people in rural areas would never get any mail. Same with electricity, internet, and other utilities.
You have to support people that live in all parts of the country, because we can’t survive if 100% of the population lived in dense cities. You need stuff that can only be done in remote areas.
A big reason why everything is made in China is because the Chinese government subsidizes the cost of shipping.
Local governments in China literally reimburse local businesses 20-50% of air freight costs.
The national Chinese government subsidizes ocean freight and commercial shipbuilding to the tune of 50%.
They also subsidize a zillion other things, but the bottom line is that by using taxes to pay for their postal/shipping services, they’re easily able to out-compete Western nations/businesses in overall product costs.
Imagine if the US was still paying for USPS through taxes—how much that would save businesses in the US and keep them competitive internationally.
Getting mail delivered is a process that everyone needs. It is the last fallback to make sure important communication reaches a person, including mail regarding anything citizenship. It is also a lot cheaper than having a bunch of private companies doing this basic thing.
I agree with you, But I suggest that you look at your own position through the same slippery slope argument. If medicine has to be socialised, why stop there? If you think medicine should be socialized, but not package delivery, why is your opinion more valid than someone who thinks that package delivery should also be socialized? Or than someone who thinks that neither should be socialized?
You stop at things everyone needs. Hair salons and pizzerias are not needed by all citizens and society would adapt immediately if they ceased to exist overnight.
Shipping includes all mail, physical correspondence, and delivery of goods, including to the stores. Society as structured needs that desperately to operate and would promptly collapse without it.
