Just as “never” is a very long time, “every address” is a very large number of addresses. Personally, I don’t mind the mild hyperbole. But when you speak in absolutes like that, you invite this kind of scrutiny, at least to some degree.
Also, this sort of assertion is kind of close to the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. It all hinges on how you define an address, and that’s a tricky thing to do.
I suspect that no one has built an electron microscope for this purpose, but rather that your claim appeared at the business end of one or two that were built decades ago.
So how close do you define delivery to be, UltraVires? Is it delivery if you have to walk ten feet to your mailbox? Is it delivery if the mail boxes are on a different floor and are a walk of forty feet from your apartment? What if you live in the country down a long entrance road (on your property) so that you have to walk 400 feet to the mailbox because the mailman doesn’t leave the public road? What if the mail boxes for your group of houses are a neighborhood cluster mailbox that’s eighty feet from your house? What if the mailboxes are in the post office 250 feet away down the street? What if the post office is 750 feet away going down the street and around the corner? What if the post office is on the other side of your small town about two-thirds of a mile away? Where is the precise difference between delivery and non-delivery?
Obviously it’s not viable for the USPS to be able to deliver to *every *address. But don’t worry–I’m sure FedEX will be happy to deliver credit card offers and whatnot directly to your door for a nominal charge.
I was gonna address (he-he) this.
I may or may not get my electricity bill. But, by god I get every piece of junkmail. I check my calendar when the Fingerhut catalogue comes. Johnny-on-the-spot, every month.
Agree. I just moved from an address the USPS doesn’t recognize or deliver to, to a new address the USPS doesn’t recognize or deliver to. Double trouble, double fun!
If you are dealing with a company that doesn’t mind a PO Box address, it’s no problem. But sometimes they insist on a street address - then you give it to them, and they say it is invalid because the USPS doesn’t recognize it. Um, no … it IS a valid address. True and exciting fact: the USPS does not deliver to every single valid physical address in America.
Anyway, it’s not at the top of my list of problems I wish society would solve - homelessness, hunger, stupidity, voting irregularities…there are so many problems that are far more important. But on a personal level, it does totally suck.
Yes. I have a PO box, but also rent a box in a UPS store. I can get UPS, FedX and regular mail at my UPS box. It works very well and I get all packages delivered there. They email me when the package arrives.
I used to just get packages delivered to work, but depending on if it’s UPS ground, or Air, sometimes they would take it to my works USPS box instead of my office. It was very messed up and confusing so I stopped doing that.
OP, you kind of got the question backwards. Most people would have to told that they DON’T deliver to every address, because it would never occur to them otherwise.
I tried to find statistics, but I can’t see to find any. All I found was “In fiscal year 2019, the Postal Service delivered 143 billion pieces of mail to 160 million delivery addresses
and operated more than 31,000 Post Offices. We served more than 46 million rural addresses, and for much of rural America we are often the only delivery option.”
We could get into all of these subtleties with a six pack of beer and an ounce of ganja (where legal) but the basic idea of delivery is that they bring something to you. If you go get it from them, at their place, that isn’t delivery. The distance is not really the factor.
According to this, if I lived in a rural area and had to drive a mile to meet the Papa Johns guy, that would not be delivery, but if I lived in the city next to a Papa Johns and walked in and picked it up it would be.
I was responding to this sort of torturous use of language that the post office “delivered” to “every address” by allowing every person to come to the post office to pick up mail. That ain’t delivery.
There are places like the farm I grew up on where the postman drives around all their working day. They would put letters into our mail box (conveniently located right on the country road we lived on) without having to get out of their car, so we would walk forty feet to the mail box for our mail. If there was a package, the postman would get out of their car and walk that forty feet to our front door and leave the package. One postman could thus handle one or two hundred homes per day. On the other hand, there are rural areas (mostly in the West) where homes are so far from each other that a postman could only hit ten homes per day if they drove to them each day. In those areas, there may not be delivery to each home. It may be necessary then for some small proportion of residences to have to get their mail delivered to a mail box which they have to drive a ways to, but that’s a small proportion of all residences in the U.S. The U.S. Postal Service does the best it can. On the farm I grew up with, we actually had less distance to walk to our mail box than some people I know now who live in housing developments who have to walk 120 feet to the neighborhood cluster mail box down the street. The Postal Service isn’t totally consistent and some people have to drive a ways to their mail box, but the vast majority of people get their mail within easy walking distance of their homes.
I’ve lived at country spots with a distant mailbox on the county road. No big deal.
I mentioned nearby of having lived in a border mining town, Bisbee Arizona, which around a century ago was the biggest city between New Orleans and San Francisco. It’s steep. 40% of homes in Old Bisbee are on stairways not roads. USPS does not deliver to homes; residents are awarded the Key To The City i.e. a free P.O.box and key. Walking to pick up mail could take anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours, depending on how often we stopped to talk to folks. Yeah, it’s that kind of place.
Our last home on a rural hilltop in a county north of San Francisco featured home mail delivery but we chose to rent a P.O.box instead to isolate us a bit from snoops. Google Maps was unable to find that or our current rural locale. That’s fine with us.
We’re now on a rough, twisty road that FedEx, DHL, UPS, and utilities can sometimes navigate though they may need to call for directions. USPS refuses to leave the pavement at a trailer-park’s mailbox cluster 1/5 mile away. We COULD receive letters there but packages would still need P.O. pickup so we rent a box here too.
Delivery to a post office is much more secure than having packages left on a front porch.
Town of 1700 people. I had my choice of mailbox on the paved road a mile from our house (I would be responsible for going out after the snowplow and clearing access) or the post office three miles away. I chose the latter. UPS and Fed Ex will deliver to my door but of course only packages. I enjoy going to the P.O. The postmistress breeds Russian Orloff chickens and we trade chicken raising tips. The packages that don’t fit in my mailbox are always waiting for me on the desk as they recognize me when I drive up. I often meet people I know there. Since I live an isolated life, it’s one of my regular little social outlets, along with friday night pizza and beer at the Inn (well, not right now but until recently).
I would venture to surmise that the P.O. in many tiny towns serves as a neighborhood nexus and information center that would be sadly missed if the neofascistcapitalists have their way with it. Next will will public schools, parks and public libraries. Don’t imagine that they don’t hate those too. Anything of public benefit that doesn’t turn a profit is being gone after and done to death.
I have a friend who lives in a small town (about 50 homes, so a couple hundred people) and he has to drive two miles to the PO to get his mail. Suppose he gets too old to drive. Or can’t afford a car. Is that service? When I lived in Urbana, IL, I had a colleague who lived about ten miles south of Urbana. He and his wife both spent their days at the university. Fortunately, their PO opened on Saturdays so they got their mail once a week. If it closed on Saturdays, they would not have any service at all.
These issues will all become moot if the PO shuts down.
Even from 15 to 20 years ago, the USPS has been cutting down on service. In my town, everyone had a mailbox on the front porch. Several years ago, the USPS decided that was too much, so now everyone has a mailbox along the street.
As I mentioned in another thread, they are no longer able to deliver mail to a prison in a small WV town because 1 number was transposed on the street address (a street address that was never necessary before).
They keep raising prices and cutting staff and don’t deliver to where UPS and Fed Ex deliver yet somehow people just LOVE the USPS and think we can’t get along without it.
I found out years ago that the post office’s unofficial creed: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” doesn’t hold up.
I’ve had plenty of times where they don’t deliver the mail because of in-climate weather.
It is illegal to send a non-emergency letter by FedEx. USPS has a monopoly on it.
What is a letter? Nobody sends those anymore. Send an email or a Facebook message or a text.
We are 3/4 of the way there now. I predict that in 10 years, nobody will need or use a piece of paper for anything. We could be there today if not for the stubborn intransigence of some professions (law, I’m looking at you). The only thing people will ship are physical items and that is right up UPS and FedEx’s wheelhouse.
Much of this is complaining about because of cars nobody will be able to buy buggy whips anymore.
Nobody sends those anymore. Send an email or a Facebook message or a text.