Well, more accurately stated, the reality is that many (not all) of the important things we get in the mail could be conveyed in other ways, which is not the same thing. I’ve received quite a number of important things in the mail recently (namely, cheques!) but I could have arranged for those to be direct deposit, as indeed I will.
But there are also other things. How do you receive your driver’s license and government health card, for example? Those are secure items produced from a central location, not things you can pick up from local offices.
But in answer to the OP, no. No one needs Saturday regular mail delivery. If something is so urgent it can’t wait for a weekday there are other ways to get it to you, namely courier services, with correspondingly higher cost.
The province has been promising digital ID for some time, but no definitive timeline yet, so some of these requirements will disappear over time.
That being said, my license and health card both expired on my birthday this spring. Since Ontario only requires an updated picture every 10 years but a new card every 5 years, I was eligible for online renewal this year. I completed the renewal 8 or so weeks before my birthday and the cards were delivered about 3 weeks later. It didn’t really matter if they were delivered on a Monday or sat at Canada Post for three days until my local mail person dropped it my box.
As a retired Old Fart, I, too, have benefitted from sitting around in my dressing gown and renewing various government stuff online. The point is still that the mail service is the way that many important physical documents get delivered to you. Another example is credit card renewals. The point is that all of this stuff is secure documents that have to be physically delivered to you. So no, the mail service is far from useless.
Yeah, the fact that anyone could complain about stamp prices is astounding to me, given the service it represents. “Here, I’ll take this physical thing from you and deliver it to someone 2000 miles away in just a few days, all for less than a buck!” In any other context, it would sound like the beginning of some sort of scam. It’s unbelievable value. Even sending stuff across town, in my case USB sticks, for $5 is more worth it than driving an hour there and an hour back to drop it off vs. dumping it off at the post office.
Personally, though, daily service for me is not necessary. Every other day would be fine. I personally don’t even notice when the mail carrier happens not to come along the route. The neighbors sure do, with their bitching and complaining, and I’m just happy I don’t have to sort through junk mail for a day. 90% of my mail goes straight into recycling. Even when I’m waiting for a check, I don’t care if it comes Tuesday or Wednesday.
They do here. AIUI, the centers only sort what goes to which post office; and maybe what goes to each route. But the carriers have to sort the mail for their route, so they have in order what goes to each house/apartment.
Another example of why reduced mail service is harder on poor people, for whom the arrival of a check a day earlier may mean not incurring late fees they can’t afford on a bill they can’t otherwise pay on time.
Application and re-certification forms for financial assistance also often come in the mail, and only in the mail (probably at least partly for security reasons); and have deadlines for returning them; and require significant paperwork to fill out. Having those show up in Saturday mail may allow doing that paperwork over the rest of the weekend, instead of having to do it on a workday (and yes, many people receiving assistance are working standard jobs.) Also, the office they come from may be in a different town/city or even a different county, so they may need to be mailed back as the applicant can’t reasonably get there to deliver them in person; and the deadlines to do that are often quite tight. Yes, all of that could theoretically be changed; in practice, it’s unlikely that it will be.
But even back in the days when I had an eye out for ny checks, even with daily delivery it was inconsistent when it would arrive. There was typically a two or sometimes three day spread of dates when it might arrive. Even when doing electronic bank transfers it can sometimes be a couple days for a transfer if you want to avoid a fee. It still is a problem either way.
How many people (poor or not) actually get regularly scheduled checks in the mail? Social Security and other Federal benefits are all electronic - either direct deposit or loaded onto a pre-paid debit card or an Electronic Benefits Card for what used to be called food stamps. Some (maybe all) states use cards for cash assistance and unemployment benefits.
And even if checks are sent through the mail, all that can be certain is the day the check is mailed - I can look up what day my pension check will be mailed ( if I had opted for mail) but it might 3 days to reach me or 10. There’s certainly no guarantee that I will get it Tuesday rather than Wed - in fact, if it’s mailed on 5/28, I’m supposed to wait until 6/8 to contact the pension system about it.
True. But for people who already have a problem, fewer mail deliveries would make the problem worse.
Fewer than used to; but not zero. Some of the poorest don’t even have bank accounts to get direct deposit into.
And some people – including self-employed or partially self-employed people – get irregular checks in the mail, but have some idea when those checks were sent, or when they were supposed to have been sent.
I recently applied top begin getting Social Security payments and was pleasantly surprised to find that they only do direct deposit. My first payment is due the third Wednesday of May. I always figured I’d die before getting my first Social Security payment, so my fingers are crossed.
Right, but they aren’t getting SS checks in the mail. Or SSI checks. Or SNAP ( food stamps). Or unemployment or cash welfare benefits in at least some states. If they don’t have bank accounts, the benefits will be loaded onto some sort of card.
Sure , but even knowing when they were sent doesn’t help if getting the check on Wednesday rather than Tuesday will be a problem.
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether we should continue with six day a week mail delivery - but I don’t think we should continue six day a week delivery because some people will have a problem getting a check on Wednesday rather than Tuesday or because some people have to complete recertification forms/applications that can only be received by mail with such a tight deadline that if they receive the forms on Monday , filling them out the next Saturday will be too late without actually knowing how many people will be affected by these problems. For example, In NY you can apply and recertify for public assistance and food stamps online.
If getting the check on Wednesday rather than Tuesday will be a problem, it doesn’t become not a problem because one does or doesn’t know which day the check will arrive. However, if the check might and sometimes does arrive on Tuesday, some percentage of people in that situation won’t have the problem (though they’ll still have the problem of worrying about it). If the check can’t possibly arrive on Tuesday because there’s no mail on Tuesday, then all of them will have the problem.
Should everybody’s finances ideally be so arranged that a check arriving a day late won’t be a problem? Sure. Is everybody able to so arrange their finances, even if they’re actively trying to do so? Unfortunately, no.
Even a 5 day delivery versus 6 is a huge deal, in terms of how the USPS works. Regular letter carriers assigned to a route have rotating days off, covered by “swing” carriers who fill in on that route. Every 6 weeks (in theory) he gets both Friday and Saturday off. If a federal holiday happens to fall on day … Never mind, it’s too complicated to explain for this purpose.
The postal union will never back a 3 or 5 day work week. The postal management for their part doesn’t want to replace anyone as people quit or retire either - it’s just one huge dumpster fire.
For over 20 years I’ve had my own domain, and use custom email addresses for everything business-ish: united@mydomain.com for United Airlines, fiveguys@ for Five Guys, etc.
Actually I don’t use united@ any more, because they got hacked or sold me out and I started getting ED spam to that address (same with jcpenney@). Since those are the ONLY places those addresses were ever used, it’s a pretty good bet that the spam came through them.
Political is even worse: my wife used to be quite into tracking candidates etc. and signed up for a lot of political candidates’ mailing lists. Years later, I’m still getting stuff to electjoeshmoe@ that’s actually now about electing Mary Jones. They ALL sold the lists.
The good news is that gmail et al. make it easy to set up at least a few sock-puppet IDs to use for this. Or just buy a domain and either use the domain provider’s mail system, or choose a provider who will forward to mailboxes of your choice. Did the latter for decades; recently our ISP’s mail system became so unreliable that I moved to the provider’s mail system, albeit still using their forwarding.
Most providers now support + addressing, so you don’t even need to set anything up, just add “+whatever” to the email address. Fins+Amazon@fttl.org goes to the same mailbox as Fins+Avis@fttl.org and Fins@fttl.org. If my email is harvested in an attack, the chances of a bad operator stripping the + addressing out is close to zero.
“most”? I know “some”. In any case, I suspect that if this becomes used enough, spammers WILL just start stripping it. I’d at least use ONE sock-puppet that I could walk away from without having to deal with all my real correspondents.
Maybe this belongs in a new thread, but what would it take to end unsolicited mail? It really galls me that 95% of my mail (by weight) goes straight into my recycling bin. As I understand it the USPS is basically funded by this trash so they have no interest in ending it, and there doesn’t seem to be much public pressure to do anything about it even though junk mail is universally hated.
Relating it to the thread, I may feel differently about my mail frequency if I only got real mail, of which I may get once or twice a week as is.
If they get rid of junk mail, there wouldn’t be any mail as we currently know it. Every thing that must actually be delivered and can’t be sent by email will cost roughly the same as Fed EX or UPS currently charges for an envelope - figure at least $5, maybe $10 per envelope. So forget about mailing Christmas Cards or wedding invitations. There probably won’t be a lower periodicals rate, so forget newspaper or magazine subscriptions by mail. You’ll no longer get a discount for allowing paperless statements - you’ll be charged the cost of mailing paper ones.