Truly a bizarre and ridiculous action. Publicly owned and operated postal delivery is still very useful, especially as late stage capitalism continues getting more and more dystopic.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Europe loves to clown on the US for a lack of social services, but the postal service is where it's reversed. In almost all of Europe, postal services are provided by private companies, with no public option. I guess the US was created at just the right time to recognize the benefit of a government postal service (thanks, Ben Franklin).
Not France, not the Netherlands. Show me the stats on that claim?
In fact, are you American? 🙄
I am American, and not the previous commenter, but a quick Google and Wikipedia search seems to indicate that Germany, Denmark, The UK, Malta, ~~Sweden, Norway,~~ and Finland have all privatized their mail services. The reddit posts from years ago about it seem to indicate that most of the people who remember the state owned service preferred the state owned post to private post services.
So not all of Europe, but a decent amount of Western Europe seems to have privatized their post. I didn't see anything about Spain, Portugal, Greece or Italy, but as I said it was a quick glance around.
According to Wikipedia the shared Swedish/Danish postal service is shared 60%/40% by the Swedish and Danish governments respectively, so im not sure how privatised it is really if it's completely owned by government.
"The owners of PostNord Group are the state of Sweden (60 percent) and the Ministry of Transport of Denmark (40 percent)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostNord
Fair enough, I was extrapolating from a comment from a Finn who indicated that they privatized their post and handed it over to PostNord
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Useful for what? Wasting resources? Filling space in mail boxes that nobody checks because there's never anything of interest in them?
Unless you mean having a postal service AT ALL, in which case you're right but also misunderstood what they're doing: they're not ending ALL portal services, they're just not wasting their resources on archaic snail mail letters anymore.
I highly doubt snail mail letters were a significant percentage of their deliveries.
They sure weren't
Reading the article they went from 1.5b in 2000 to 110m last year. That doesn't sound like an insignificant amount after all.
This sounds like a bad move.
While it sounds like a lot in a raw number,that's not much for a population of 5.5million people for an entire year.
Besides, most of that was bills and correspondence from the government, things that have no reason for still being snail mail.
This sounds like a bad move.
Based on incomplete and misinterpreted data, sure. Based on the realities here in Denmark? Not really.
FYI, this is very similar to what is going on in Canada right now: the post is a crown corporation, meaning it's a federal entity funded by the public through taxes and the carrier fees. Package delivery is their highest volume, but they have an exclusive right to letter mail. The government was debating axing the service, but the postal union pushed back hard with month long strikes.
The argument for axing the service has two flaws:
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corporations will fill in the gap: they will not. They will take over the service and monopolize it (or collude). And when it's a necessity that people have to rely on, they will jack up prices and ask for government subsidy to keep it going. Basically all that was created was a middleman taking their cut...
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the service has to be profitable: it doesn't. Government services don't have to be profitable. Sure, it's nice when they are, but that's not the point of a service and the government can balance budget elsewhere, like selling energy for example. It's infrastructure, not a business venture.
So yes, as the lady said, the world is watching for sure.
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It's still vital to voting by mail but I reckon it's no use as democracies are soon obsolete
I don't even know what I would send in the mail. It's pretty much just a coupon/junk delivery service at this point. Just get rid of it.
Can't speak for everywhere or everyone, but my grandmother sure enjoys knowing when her hospital appointments are.
Letter mail still has a purpose. Email really can’t replace it. Sending bills to proprietary portals I need to sign into to see what I owe is ridiculous. Just one more app bro.
I usually get my bills in a PDF? You have to join sites to view them? I would hate that.
Email is both insecure and unreliable by design. I would never want to receive anything financially or legally important that way. As a notification option, sure, but not the only way.
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Flip phones with voice and text only - no data - plans put a wrench in the whole internet portal thing.
Unless of course it's law to own a mobile device.
This will last as long as reliable electricity and internet access does.
Thing is, it's going to create a historical hole in future archeological studies of this era, as the messages within digital devices are ephemral. Texts of today, unlike handwritten letters stand a slim chance of being a tangible artifact in 200 years.
Que sera..
This will last as long as reliable electricity and internet access does.
As will modern society.
Like stage coaches and telegraphs before them, snail mail letters are obsolete relics of a less convenient past.
I occasionally send a snail mail, and it's much more heartwarming to receive a handwritten letter than an email, so I don't think it is obsolete :(
Conveience is overrated and it fosters short-sightedness.
Don't be caugt up in the whizz-bang of energy dependency. In a power generation crisis situation the trivial stuff will be lost.
Texting links to TikTok of some cat jumping into a bird feeder isn't gonna survive. Sending your grandparents a snail-mail letter describing what you're doing just might.
When you have less life left in front of you, making a mark or leaving a mark on the world behind you takes on a different hue. EVERYONE - even you, will get to that point.
It's basic human nature.
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They still mail packages, right? Why end delivering letters? They're just small packages.
In the year 2000, PostNord delivered nearly 1.5 billion letters. Last year, it delivered 110 million.
Makes sense when you really think about it. U.S. letter mail is mostly junk.
Canada post office has a standard letter being no more than 50g.
So 5.5 mil kg. That is a lot to carry.
I would hate it bc it makes the apps that companies make more enticing; which makes data collecting more profittable. So yeah.
I don't know if it's them getting worse or just I'm reading more news about them but the Danes kind of seem to suck.
What else have you seen about them?
Not as much as you do though.
In the US you can’t even unsubscribe from the usps according to my letter carrier and their website. I’ve tried just never getting the mail but they end up bundling it up and sticking it in front of your front door.
Here's what you do. Dig the sidewalk down 50 feet. Just a sudden drop. 200 foot tall fence made of barbed wire and spiked metal. This reaches all the way to the 50 foot drop of the sidewalk.
The sidewalk is public property. So if he throws it down there, it's littering.
The fence is also electrified. Your mailbox is on the front porch. Thete's also random landmines in the yard, and swinging chainsaws being whirled around by pulleys.
Lets see him deliver those weekly savers ads now!
Clearly you aren't familiar with the mail carrier's oath.
When society collapses, the human population is at a historic low, and evil warlords stake claim to swathes of wasteland, The Postman can still be seen riding off into the horizon, for nothing will keep them from their assigned route.
Wait, the US doesn't have a free service to (a) remove you from postal spam lists and (b) stop spam being delivered?
In the UK, I registered my address on a few of the things listed here ( https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/post-and-parcels/stop-getting-junk-mail/ ). And the only junk mail I now receive are political flyers & takeout menus delivered outside of the postal service (ie by people, not posties).
Do Americans really have to put up with receiving random bullshit with no easy way of stopping it?!
Not really, no, because between letter and bulk mail mailbox delivery, the USPS derives much more revenue from bulk mail.
But, because most people just trash it, most companies have also stopped sending it.
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Isn't snail mail the last legally protected communication?
The US needs to ban mail immediately.
Thankfully that would require an amendment to The Constitution, so it will never happen.
You say that as if the Constitution even matters anymore.
Oh this is not going to end well
The generation that cant email, text or videocall are dying out. The fact is that everyone laments this, wrings their hands, calls it an outrage and then doesnt send a letter or christmas card ever and already gets all of their bills via email. They love the idea of mail.
Yeah, it is a pretty bizarre comment section. Mostly based on complete ignorance of the situation as well.
Getting a letter then will be all that much more special and or romantic. Unless it's jury duty.
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