[LINK] The New Email is Facebook Status - Was - Maintaining the link list - Facebook page?

[Fernando Cassia]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 11:17 PM, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at melbpc.org.au> wrote:
> Heard a story on AM today about US post offices closing in small US
> towns.

AFAIK it´s because of budget cuts, not because people no longer use
the postal service to receive stuff.

U.S. Postal Service to close 2,000 post offices amid budget crisis
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/twin-falls/article_d3dbdc1f-0eff-56f2-90d6-b5f7b078edf8.html

In fact, the people in rural communities who make a living -or
complement their income- selling stuff on-line and shipping through
the USPS will be afected the most. Once upon a time I used to import
and resell SCSI adapters (yes, I´m old, like SCSI ;), my US-based
provider was a fellow in rural Montana, of all places. I guess he
purchased auctioned stuff from dotcoms going bust, but that´s only a
guess.

I checked last year, his eBay profile, and he was still in business,
selling networking kit. He shipped all his stuff using the US postal
Service, from a small town near the Montana wilderness whose name now
escapes me.

I´m sure UPS and FedEx would like to have all of the market currently
served by the US Postal Service, and charge their oh-so-great rates.
(By the way, the USPS has agreements with other countries´ postal
service administrations to offer "EMS" -Express Mail Service- that
IMHO is the best way to ship small parcels internationally, with the
most cost-effictive rates and end-to-end on-line tracking, at a
fraction of the cost of couriers).

 > The interviewer asked an older man if he has email in his
> place because that was one of the reasons for closing his p.o. He
> chuckled and said, no, in his southern Virginia drawl, that email is
> junk. Then there was guffawing around him. I guess he was either
> geographically, demographically, or economically challenged.

Well, the day once can receive parcels over e-mail, then indeed the
postal service will become obsolete. <VBG> ;-). I´m not sure how
popular mail-ordering is in .AU. But it´s been slowly catching up down
here at the other side of the globe, as e-commerce grows.

Of course, we could argue about whether the postal service must "make
a profit" or if it provides a service with social benefits -and
consequences if not available-.

But that´s another debate altogether. ;)
FC