If the Postal Service has become a subsidized tool for mass mailers, why does the state still own it?
Ian Lee, a professor of strategic management at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, cited by Elisabeth Rosenthal in The Junking of the Postal Service
The economics of surface mail don't make much sense. And the inviolability of the personal mailbox -- where the law states that no one can place anything in personal mailboxes but the Post Office -- has been subverted by the Post Office themselves: they partnered with Every Door Direct, which distributes unaddressed advertising materials from local retailers in our mailboxes.
I am considering switching to US Post Office General Delivery. They hold mail for 30 days, so I could drop by every few days, and drop all the junk mail directly in the recycling bin there. I wouldn't have to visit my mailbox at all. And I'd be -- in effect -- defecting from the energy inefficient local delivery service.
What if everybody did this? What if the great majority of people opted out of home delivery?