I had a realization that the very existence of private domestic shippers in countries indicates a failure of their government to provide universal infrastructure needed by all citizens.

There may be specialized needs like same-day couriers, special handling requirements and other edge cases, but those should be small specialty houses, not international mega-corps.

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[–] 13 points 4 days ago (5 children)

You don't agree that everyone should be able to mail in vote?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 days ago* (4 children)

    I assumed the question was about packages/bulk goods, not mail.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

    You don't have to personally send and receive parcels to depend on that service. If you ever buy goods of any kind, those exchanges depend upon the existence of shipping infrastructure. Everyone but those completely removed from society depends upon it in a very real capacity, just like people without cars still need there to be roads.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Oh, maybe. But once you have the infra to send a person to every house for mail, the rest isn't as hard.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    But we do have that. USPS will ship up to 70lbs, which will cover 99% of use cases.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago

    Mercenary shipping is like mercenary healthcare. Sure we can pretend we don't need it, or we can avoid it, but it never stops being a cost that eventually comes around to all of us -- only with layers of profit added on.

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