Why is US postage the same for 2 miles and 2000 miles?
In: 12
I’ll also add this – The US postal system is an odd mix of Private / Public logic, for which I’d compare it to something like a mass transit or subway system.
For example, if you look at the New York City subway system, the question was asked early on should a fare be calculated based on distance traveled or a flat rate? The decision was to institute a flat rate because a distance based system reduced the mobility of the poorer population. The deliberate intent was to create a flat fare so that the poorest citizens could be displaced from the city center (in this example, the Lower East Side) and move out to the distant reaches of the city (rural Queens and Brooklyn at the time) where land was cheaper, if it were distance based those citizens wouldn’t be able to afford the fare. This freed up massive amounts of real estate in lower Manhattan that could now be developed.
Similarly a distance based mail system would have unequal effects on haves and have nots which might be OK in a completely privatized organization, but not for our semi-Public USPS.
Latest Answers